Schwab Trading Volume Swells to End Strong Year for Markets

Summary

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Bloomberg Businessweek: “Schwab Trading Volume Swells to End Strong Year for Markets”

Date: January 22, 2026
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Guest: Rick Worster, President & CEO, Charles Schwab Corporation

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Charles Schwab's exceptional Q4 2025 results, highlighting the surge in trading volumes as retail investors capitalized on a strong market year. Carol and Tim speak with Schwab's CEO, Rick Worster, exploring Schwab’s record performance, client trends, innovations in trading, and industry outlook. The discussion ranges from prediction markets and private investments to the possibility of 24/7 trading.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Record Quarter and Growth Drivers

[02:32–03:58]

• Schwab experienced a record-shattering Q4:

  • Earnings up 50% YoY.
  • Revenue up 22% YoY.
  • Net new client assets: $519 billion in 2025, with a record $163 billion in Q4 alone.

• Clients are consolidating more of their financial activities—trading, investing, banking, and lending—at Schwab, seeking a holistic approach.

• Schwab’s integrated platform results in higher client satisfaction and business growth.

  “When we do that, their satisfaction actually increases and our business grows. So it’s a win for them… and it’s a win for us.” —Rick Worster [03:43]

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2. Prediction Markets vs. Gambling and Schwab’s Stance

[03:58–07:17]

• Tim and Carol press Rick on Schwab’s possible adoption of prediction markets.

• Rick distinguishes between financial prediction markets (e.g., making calls on inflation/employment numbers) and sports gambling (which he says is 95% of current “prediction market” activity).

• Schwab is open to financial prediction markets “in the context of an investment portfolio” but has deprioritized them, as customer demand is low and existing financial markets already serve this function.

  "Our mission as a firm is to make clients better off in their financial life… That’s the complete antithesis of what we do at Schwab.” —Rick Worster [05:06]

  • Schwab is not interested in sports gambling, citing its poor odds for customers.

  “We’ll leave the sports gambling… to the gambling houses, to the FanDuels, the DraftKings, and the Robinhoods.” —Rick Worster [05:39]

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3. Innovation Priorities and Client-Led Innovation

[07:17–08:26]

• Schwab’s 2025 innovations focused on:

  • 24x5 active trading.
  • Enhanced mobile app for active traders and wealth clients.
  • New tax, trust, and estate capabilities, including a partnership with Wealth.com.
  • Advisor-focused improvements.

• Prediction markets ranked low in Schwab’s client surveys; practical, wealth-growing features are prioritized.

  “When we go out and survey our clients about what they want from us, prediction markets is low on the list.” —Rick Worster [08:14]

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4. Democratizing Private Market Access: The Forge Global Acquisition

[08:26–09:25]

• Discusses Schwab’s acquisition of Forge Global, giving retail clients access to private company investments, an asset class previously reserved for institutions and the wealthy.

• Schwab aims to "democratize" alternative investing, bridging the gap for everyday retail investors.

  “Our Forge acquisition was really about democratizing investments in alternatives. We're now going to be able to bring it to all of our investors... and allow them to participate in private markets.” —Rick Worster [08:53]

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5. Market Volatility, Geopolitics, and Schwab’s Approach

[09:25–11:30]

• Carol shifts to breaking news affecting markets—a potential US-European deal relating to Greenland and NATO, causing a market rally.

• Rick is unfazed, noting the “geopolitical noise” is to be expected; Schwab excels by offering hands-on client support during volatile periods.

  “This is the kind of environment in which we thrive because we’re not just an investment app. We took 30 million calls last year… We’re in… communities with actual people to help coach our clients…” —Rick Worster [10:56]

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6. The Future: 24/7 Trading

[11:30–12:56]

• On NYSE’s 24/7 trading plans: Schwab is open, already offers 24x5 stock trading.

• Notes that most trading still occurs during regular hours and that set hours create liquidity and tighter spreads (a benefit to clients).

• Warns that with 24/7 markets, there’s risk of losing market efficiency, though customer convenience is recognized.

  “The market hours are a feature, not a bug… By limiting the market hours, you draw people in at the same time and create a lot of liquidity so that spreads are tight and trading efficiency is very high.” —Rick Worster [12:24]

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7. Closing Sentiments: Market Optimism

[12:56–13:09]

• Asked for a 10-second outlook, Rick expresses cautious optimism.

  “The economy is on strong footing. Market’s been up three years in a row. Unless something changes, things look pretty good.” —Rick Worster [13:02]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the distinction between prediction markets and gambling:

  “Less than 5% of people who go on to one of these gambling apps take out more money than they put in… That’s the complete antithesis of what we do at Schwab.” —Rick Worster [05:06]

• On innovation priorities:

  “All of those are things that we think are far more impactful to our clients’ ability to grow their wealth than prediction markets.” —Rick Worster [07:49]

• On democratizing private investments:

  “We’re thrilled to bridge that gap and excited for what that could mean for our clients’ wealth.” —Rick Worster [09:11]

• On weathering volatility:

  “Whatever markets and geopolitics bring, we’re going to be ready for it and it’s going to help us distinguish what we stand for here at Schwab, which is helping our clients grow their wealth.” —Rick Worster [11:18]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:32–03:58] — Schwab's record quarter and client trends
• [03:58–07:17] — Prediction markets vs. gambling, Schwab stance
• [07:17–08:26] — Innovation focus areas
• [08:26–09:25] — Access to private markets via Forge Global
• [09:25–11:30] — Volatility, geopolitics, market outlook
• [11:30–12:56] — 24/7 stock trading: possible and pitfalls
• [12:56–13:09] — Optimistic 2026 outlook

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Tone & Takeaway

The episode maintains an upbeat, insightful tone—Rick Worster is candid about trends, strategic priorities, and realistic about hype topics like prediction markets and 24/7 trading. Schwab’s commitment to growth, innovation, and client-first ethics stands out. Key message: Schwab is experiencing growth by making complex financial products accessible and client experiences superior—while remaining conservative about speculative trends outside their values.

Transcript

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You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol.

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Massar and Tim Stanvak on Bloomberg Radio.

[Carol Massar]

Schwab shares I'm just taking a look at them. Shares of the Charles Schwab corporation. They're up about 1% in today's session. Stock is trading higher after the company reported earnings earlier today. This morning it did report a surge in average daily trading volume in the fourth quarter. And that's happening as retail investors really sought to take advantage at the end of a strong year of the stock market. We did see some big moves there. Hey to talk about the quarter and the outlook. Great for today and I to be back with Rick Worster. He's president and CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation. He joins us from their headquarters in Westlake, Westlake, Texas. Rick, great to have you back with us. How are you?

[Rick Worster]

I'm doing really well. Nice to be with you Carol and Tim. I always enjoy it.

[Carol Massar]

Well, we are so glad to have you back with us. It feels like 2026 is is off and running I'm just curious though, I want to talk about the last quarter and you guys did note about clients conducting a lot more of their financial lives at Schwab, doing different things, management, trading and banking. So talk to us a little bit more about how the quarter wrapped up and where you saw them engaging more.

[Rick Worster]

It was a record quarter for us as a firm. Our earnings grew 50% year over year. Our revenue was up 22% year over year. And we saw net new client assets to the firm of $519 billion on the year, including an all time record quarter in the fourth quarter of $163 billion. And importantly, what we are seeing is a bull market for not just in financial services, but I think across most industries. The way that reflects itself for us is a desire for clients to have more of their financial life conducted with one institution. And we've been the institution for many that they're turning to. We can help them with their investing needs, we can help them with their trading needs, with their wealth needs, with their banking and lending needs. And so by bringing together a client's financial life, we're able to help them more. When we do that, their satisfaction actually increases and our business grows. So it's a win for them because we're bringing convenience and it's a win for us because we're doing more business with them and doing more to help them in their financial life.

[Tim Stanvak]

You mentioned financial lives and you just went through a whole list of things that people do with these apps and services. What about prediction markets? Can you talk a little bit about whether you're planning on exploring options for customers when it comes to prediction markets? It's all a rage right now, as you very well know.

[Carol Massar]

And you thought we were going to warm you up. We weren't.

[Tim Stanvak]

We're just, we're going right in.

[Rick Worster]

First, I distinguished between prediction markets and gambling. Being able to forecast employment or inflation and being able to take a point of view or position on those and that could somehow hedge or accentuate the positions in your investment portfolio. And I think as it as that those were born, I think that makes sense when the within the context of an investment portfolio and we're absolutely open to having that on our platform, those types of prediction markets at the moment, it's not high on our clients list of things they want us to innovate for them. And so we've been focused our innovations in other areas that are of more interest to clients. But I distinguish that between that and sports gambling. And if you look at 95% of the volume of what people call prediction markets is actually just sports gambling. And that's not something that is, we're keenly interested in getting into for a very simple reason, which is our mission as a firm is to make clients better off in their financial life. And less than 5% of people who go on to one of these gambling apps take out more money than they put in in the first place. That's the complete antithesis of what we do at Schwab. Our clients wealth is at an all time high, the level of advice we're giving them is at an all time high, and the amount we're doing to try to help them is at an all time high. So we'll leave the sports gambling, which constitutes 95% of the prediction market's volume, we'll leave that to the gambling houses, to the Vanduul's, the Draftkings and the Robin Hoods.

[Tim Stanvak]

So that's. It's funny, it's interesting that you say Robinhood. We'll get back to that because I think Robinhood would probably like to position itself as a competitor to Charles Schwab in a lot of areas. If we stick with the 95% of what you believe prediction markets is sports gambling, what, what is the 5% that is of interest to you that we could potentially see at one point on Schwab's platform? Give us some examples there.

[Rick Worster]

Well, I think if you want to take a position on what the employment report is going to be, you know, at the end of the month, or how inflation's going to print, those things could have an impact on your portfolio. If you have a big bond position, you may have interest in what's going to happen in the inflation report. And it's a simple way of taking a position based on a yes or no position. And so that could be of interest to clients. But the reason I think we see haven't seen much volume in those. And the reason why 95% of the volume is in sports gambling is because if you want to take a position on the employment report or the inflation report, there are countless ways to do that. And financial market participants are already doing that, whether it's in the bond market, in the futures market, through options, there's plenty of ways to do that today. And I think that's part of the reason why the true idea of prediction markets really haven't taken off and why the firms that offer this have pivoted to sports gambling. Because there's a lot more interest in that than there is in taking a position on the employment or inflation report.

[Carol Massar]

All right, so then safe to say Rick, if you were a betting man, I would guess that there's nothing in terms of a prediction market on the Schwab platform in the next year or so, or maybe never.

[Rick Worster]

Well, we've been innovating at a very fast rate. 2025 was all about how do we meet the wealth lending, active trading needs of our clients. And we had significant innovations in every one of those areas. We went to 24 by 5 trading for active traders. We continue to make our mobile app even stronger for for those that want to actively trade. And via the mobile app for our wealth clients, we launched new tax, trust and estate capabilities including an investment we made in wealth.com to bring trust capabilities directly to our clients. We launched a series of new capabilities for our advisor clients and in particular really leaned into innovations around making it easier for them to work with us. All of those are things that we think are far more impactful to our clients ability to grow their wealth than prediction markets. And when we go out and survey our clients about what they want from us, prediction markets markets is low on the list. So it's something we are actively looking at. I think at some point in the future we will have true prediction markets at some point, but it's just not high on our innovation list because we're firmly focused on those innovations. They're going to have the most impact on our clients wealth.

[Carol Massar]

Right. Unlike you know, something we talked about when we were at Schwab Impact with you in November, that you had just done a deal which would give investors access to private companies. This was buying Forge Global. So I get that's a more of a priority for clients.

[Rick Worster]

Yeah, I think you go back to the 80s when I believe it was KKR that did the first leveraged buyout. Institutions have been benefiting from the diversification and the return enhancement from alternatives investments. And you know, in the past decades or multiple decades, the really wealthy have also been able to participate in those return and diversification benefits. But the everyday retail investor has not been able to. And our Forge acquisition was really about democratizing investments and alternatives. We're now going to be able to bring it to all of our investors in multiple different forms and allow them to participate in private markets the way institutions and the very wealthy have been able to. And we're, we're thrilled to bridge that gap and excited for what that could mean for our clients wealth.

[Carol Massar]

Hey Eric, one thing we got to bring your attention to, it's just A headline that crossed the Bloomberg and we're seeing markets turn around and rally pretty substantially on it. We see a straight move up on all of the major equity averages. We're now up nearly 1.2% on the S&P and up almost 1.4% on the NASDAQ 100. President Trump, who's in Davos in meeting with European leader, says he has said he won't impose Greenland limited tariffs on February 1. But the headline that really I think got markets moving was that the president says he's got a framework for future deal on Greenland with NATO. And I guess I want to bring this into the conversation because I feel like when Tim and I and you were together at Tuam Impact in Denver, it was pretty upbeat, I think, about the market environment and the outlook. And there's been a lot that's happened here in 2026. It feels like volatility is back. I'm just curious, you know, have any of the assumptions about the White House and policy and changes changed in your view? And I'm just curious what you make of, of something like this from the president that definitely has the markets moving to the upside.

[Rick Worster]

Yeah, I don't, I don't think any of that surprises us. We're still within, you know, a percent or two of all time highs in markets. I think there's going to be geopolitical noise from time to time. If you've read the book the Art of the Deal, I think it, you know, it begins with starting big in your requests and then negotiating to something that is workable for both parties. And my guess is that that may be the playbook that's followed here. But for our clients, we're not seeing an undue amount of concern. And this is the kind of environment in which we thrive because we're not just an investment app. We're so much more than that. We took 30 million calls from clients last year and answered them in less than 30 seconds. We're in all many local communities across this country with actual people that are there to help coach our clients and how to navigate periods like this and, and how to see through the noise and be diversified and stick with it for the long term so that they can build their wealth. So whatever markets and geopolitics bring, we're going to be ready for it and it's going to help us distinguish what we stand for here at Schwab, which is helping our clients grow their wealth.

[Tim Stanvak]

You know, the, we had some reporting in recent days about the New York Stock Exchange exploring ways for 24. 7 trading of assets. And I'm curious, crypto kind of paved the way for that because a lot of people can trade crypto. 24. 7, what do you think of the ability for people to trade stocks 24. Seven?

[Rick Worster]

Well, I think we're very open to that and would certainly participate. We're already 24 by 5 today. We see very little market activity or very little client activity outside of market hours, usually only a couple of a percent. The vast majority of trading happens within the market hours. And I think the market hours are a feature, not a bug. And what I mean by that is by limiting the marketing hours, market hours, you draw people in at the same time and create a lot of liquidity so that spreads are tight and trading efficiency is very high. I think the convenience of 24. Seven is certainly very appealing, but we need to make sure that those trades are done in a way that makes sense for clients. And you know, as we see clients trade on our 24 by 5 platform, we make very certain that they trade in a way that they're recognizing the higher spreads. And we make that very clear to them and, and they live with that for the convenience. But we just need to be careful as we go to 24 by 7 that we don't lose the efficiency of the market and the benefits of getting everyone into the market at around the same time, which is great for trading efficiency.

[Carol Massar]

Hey rick, super quick 10 seconds. Feels optimistic this year.

[Rick Worster]

I think so. There's a lot, you know, the economy is on strong footing. Market's been up three years in a row. Unless something changes, things look pretty good.

[Carol Massar]

Well, we certainly look forward to coming back to you throughout the year and checking in on it. Rick, thank you so much. Happy New Year. Rick Worster, he is the President CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation, joining us there from Texas.

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