The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) is a leading investment services firm with $11.90 trillion in client assets

CNBC “Money Movers”

January 21, 2026

Sara Eisen: What's driving the activity, though? Besides what you're doing, what's happening in the overall environment, and where these assets are coming from? 

Rick Wurster: A couple of things. I think one, with markets up three years in a row, clients are more engaged in markets than they've ever been. Number two, we've got a wealth of people retiring, and as they retire, they're asking questions. They're making sure they're ready for retirement. And then we've seen the young generation come to Schwab at record levels and get invested earlier than the prior generations have. Fully one-third of our new-to-firm clients last year were Gen Z investors, and the average age of our clients has actually come down by ten years in the last decade. So we keep getting younger as more and more investors get invested at an earlier age, which is wonderful to see. You know, the more people save earlier, the more that's going to compound, and they're going to be able to afford to live their life. And so we couldn't be more thrilled to support investors of all demographics. 

Sara Eisen: I think one of the questions that analysts have is how you get to the 7%. I think you have the 5 to 7% growth range target. And with such strong results, how much better does it have to get to get to that upper range? 

Rick Wurster: Well, I think our growth grew 42% year-over-year. Our retail business grew by a third and our advisory business grew by over 40%. So we are growing very robustly. We're going to continue to invest in relationships. We know that when we have a deep relationship with a client, they do better. They're more satisfied with Schwab and they end up bringing us more assets as a result. We're also going to invest in our crypto business, which we think will attract new assets and our workplace business. As we make those investments, we expect to see our robust growth, that we're seeing today, accelerate. 

Sara Eisen: Yeah. 

Rick Wurster: So we think we head into 2026 in a position of real strength. 

Sara Eisen: The 5 to 7 number I was giving was the organic asset growth, which I know is an important metric for the street as well. 

Rick Wurster: Yeah, absolutely, and we grew at 5.1% this year, up from 4.3% last year. So we continue to move in the right direction and at our size and scale, to be able to grow at that level, I think is a testament to the work we're doing for clients. 

Sara Eisen: I'm curious with your foothold in retail and as you gain retail, what your thoughts are on the prediction markets, because some of your competitors, like Robinhood, are getting into it. Is that an area that you would look at? 

Rick Wurster: Well, I'd distinguish between prediction markets, which to me are predictions about what's going to happen to the economy, what may happen in politics, what may happen to the employment report, things that are related to financial markets and therefore related to someone's investment portfolio. And I distinguish between that and sports gambling. If you look today at what people are calling prediction markets, 95% of the volume is in sports gambling. Our clients are not expressing a tremendous amount of interest in the true prediction markets. If they do, we will be there. And we are looking at the possibility of launching prediction markets, but it's not on the short list because everything we do is through clients eyes and there's other things that are of higher priority that we're working on behalf of clients. As it relates to sports gambling, where all the volume is, we'll leave that to others. We'll leave that to the gambling houses, the Robinhoods, and the houses that focus on sports gambling.

Sara Eisen: Yeah. What sort of other areas? I mean, I guess private markets. We've talked about a recent acquisition you made there, crypto. I know you're experimenting with that. How are you thinking about some of the growth areas there? And tokenization too? 

Rick Wurster: Yeah, I think, we saw record levels of innovation at Schwab in 2025. And we'll continue that in 2026. All of that innovation is centered around the client and how we put more money in their pockets. And so in 2025, we extended the way we help clients navigate concentrated positions, because many have benefited from the concentration of the market and the high flying stocks that they have in their portfolio. We've helped clients with tax loss harvesting strategies, to generate losses to offset their gains. We've integrated their financial life on the wealth, lending and investment side and are bringing new lending solutions to help newer investors afford their first down payment on their house, or to help retirees grow their wealth in advance of their retirement. So all of our innovation has centered around putting more wealth into our clients pockets. 

Sara Eisen: Rick, how would you describe the level of bullishness among your clients for the equity markets? What does positioning look like and how much are they all in the market at this point? 

Rick Wurster: I think clients are generally favorable to the markets. We've had three years in a row of positive markets. Even on a day like we saw yesterday, where markets were down a lot, we didn't see a big elevation in client concern. We saw call volumes that were 7% above normal. We saw normal levels of logins. Those kinds of periods markets are going to go through ups and downs. Economies are going to go through ups and downs. That's really where we shine at Schwab. For 50 years, we've seen it all. And we've been there through it all for clients, both live, digitally, and in their local communities. We're there when clients need us, and whatever the market brings this year, we're going to be there for them. But in general, I think clients are fairly bullish. 

Sara Eisen: Okay, Rick, thank you for joining us. Giving us some more details around the quarter and what you are thinking about. Rick Wurster, CEO of Schwab. 

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This interview contains forward-looking statements relating to the company’s strategy and focus; momentum and competitive position; growth in client accounts and assets; and client sentiment and engagement. These forward-looking statements reflect management’s expectations as of the date hereof. Achievement of these expectations and objectives is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the company’s ability to close the acquisition of Forge on the anticipated terms and timing; required regulatory approvals and approval by Forge’s stockholders; disruptions to Forge’s business as a result of the announcement and pendency of the acquisition; and the ability and timeframe to integrate the business and realize the anticipated benefits.  Other important factors that may cause such differences are described in the company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, which have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available on https://www.aboutschwab.com/financial-reports) and on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (https://www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to update any forward-looking statements.

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