Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster Talks Earnings, Prediction Markets

Summary

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Bloomberg Talks – Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster Talks Earnings, Prediction Markets

Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Bloomberg (Carol & Tim)
Guest: Rick Wurster, President & CEO of Charles Schwab Corporation

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bloomberg Talks centers on an in-depth conversation with Rick Wurster, CEO of Charles Schwab. Key topics include Schwab's record earnings, changing trends in client behaviors, the company’s approach to prediction markets and fintech innovation, recent moves to democratize private investments, and broader financial market trends for 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Schwab’s Record-Setting Quarter and Growth Drivers

• Earnings & Revenue Surge:
  • Schwab achieved a record quarter, with 50% year-over-year earnings growth, 22% increase in revenue, and $519 billion in net new client assets for 2025, including a $163 billion fourth quarter.
  • Quote: “It was a record quarter for us as a firm. Our earnings grew 50% year over year … net new client assets … $519 billion on the year.” (Rick Wurster, 01:27)
• Trend Toward Financial Convenience:
  • Clients increasingly prefer to manage all aspects of their financial life—trading, wealth management, banking—in one place.
  • Quote: “We are seeing is a bull market for convenience … clients have more of their financial life conducted with one institution.” (Rick Wurster, 01:27)
• Product Expansion:
  • Schwab continues to add wealth management, active trading, banking, lending, and digital app features to attract a wider range of clients.

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Prediction Markets: Distinction and Schwab’s Position

• Distinguishing Prediction Markets from Gambling (02:44):
  • Wurster is open to “prediction markets” when focused on financial events (like jobs or inflation reports) but draws a hard line against sports gambling.
  • Quote: “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 Wurster, 03:38)
  • Schwab has no intention of entering sports betting, which he estimates to account for 95% of so-called “prediction market” volume, leaving that space to platforms like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Robinhood.
• Financial Prediction Tools vs. Existing Options (04:37):
  • True financial prediction markets (wagering on inflation or employment figures) have low demand; there’s ample opportunity to take such positions in traditional financial markets.
  • Quote: “If you want to take a position on the employment report or the inflation report, there are countless ways to do that … through options … so that’s part of the reason why the true idea of prediction markets really haven’t taken off.” (Rick Wurster, 04:37)
• Not a Near-Term Priority (05:45):
  • Innovation is customer-driven, and prediction markets currently rank low on Schwab clients’ wish lists.
  • Quote: “It's something we are actively looking at. I think at some point in the future we will have true prediction markets … but it's just not high on our innovation list.” (Rick Wurster, 05:45)

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Innovating for Clients: Priorities & Recent Moves

• Major Innovations in 2025 (05:45):
  • 24x5 trading for active traders.
  • Enriched mobile app capabilities for active self-directed clients.
  • New tax, trust, and estate planning features (including an investment in Wealth.com).
  • Streamlined tools for financial advisors.
  • These efforts are seen as directly impacting client wealth far more than prediction markets.
• Private Markets Access & Democratization (06:54):
  • Recent acquisition of Forge Global, aimed at giving Schwab clients—especially retail investors—access to private company investments traditionally reserved for institutions and the ultra-wealthy.
  • Quote: “Our Forge acquisition was really about democratizing investments and alternatives … allow [retail investors] to participate in private markets the way institutions and the very wealthy have been able to.” (Rick Wurster, 07:08)

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Market Outlook, Geopolitics & Client Behavior

• Responding to Headlines (07:52):
  • Discussion of real-time market spikes on news about U.S. tariffs and international negotiations.
  • Wurster notes that while volatility is up, clients aren’t showing unusual concern.
  • Lessons from “The Art of the Deal”: anticipate geopolitical “noise” and focus on long-term strategies.
  • Quote: “There’s going to be geopolitical noise from time to time … for our clients, we’re not seeing an undue amount of concern.” (Rick Wurster, 08:58)
• Support & Advice in Volatile Times:
  • Emphasizes Schwab’s real human support network (answered 30 million client calls in under 30 seconds in 2025) and community presence.
  • Encourages clients to “see through the noise and be diversified and stick with it for the long term”. (Rick Wurster, 08:58)

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24x7 Trading: Opportunity & Cautions

• Views on 24x7 Stock Trading (09:58):
  • While open to following NYSE into 24x7 trading, Schwab’s data shows few clients actually trade outside regular hours due to wide spreads and lower liquidity.
  • Quote: “The vast majority of trading happens within the market hours. And I think the market hours are a feature, not a bug.” (Rick Wurster, 10:18)
  • He warns that full 24x7 trading should not come at the expense of market efficiency and tight spreads.

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Closing Outlook: The Mood for 2026

• Optimism Moving Forward (11:29):
  • Wurster sounds confident about Schwab’s and the market’s prospects, emphasizing the economy’s solid footing and continued innovation.
  • Quote: “I think so. … The economy is on strong footing. Market’s been up three years in a row. Unless something changes, things look pretty good.” (Rick Wurster, 11:29)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Convenience:

  “We are seeing is a bull market for convenience.” (Rick Wurster, 01:27)

• On Schwab’s Mission:

  “Our mission as a firm is to make clients better off in their financial life.” (Rick Wurster, 03:38)

• Prediction Markets vs. Gambling:

  “We’ll leave the sports gambling … to the Van Duol’s, the DraftKings, and the Robinhoods.” (Rick Wurster, 03:57)

• On Democratizing Private Markets:

  “Our Forge acquisition was really about democratizing investments and alternatives … to bring it to all our investors in multiple different forms.” (Rick Wurster, 07:08)

• On 24x7 Trading:

  “Market hours are a feature, not a bug.” (Rick Wurster, 10:18)

• Closing Optimism:

  “The economy is on strong footing. Market’s been up three years in a row. Unless something changes, things look pretty good.” (Rick Wurster, 11:29)

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Important Timestamps

• Record Earnings and Client Behavior: 01:27–02:25
• Prediction Markets Discussion: 02:40–05:45
• Innovation Focus and New Offerings: 05:45–06:54
• Forge Global Acquisition and Private Markets: 06:54–07:52
• Market Reactions to Geopolitical News: 07:52–08:58
• 24x7 Trading Potential: 09:58–11:24
• Final Take & Optimism for 2026: 11:24–11:36

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This summary captures the core themes and lively insights from Rick Wurster on Schwab’s direction, its disciplined and client-centric innovation, and the evolving financial landscape at the start of 2026.

Transcript

[Michael McDermott]

At CES. Michael McDermott, EVP of Samsung, spoke with Bloomberg Media Studios about what the company calls its next AI Chapter, your companion to AI Living.

[Rick Wurster]

It's a shift from AI as a.

[Michael McDermott]

Feature to AI as a trusted partner in everyday life.

[Carol]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio news 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 day 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 Tim 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, Texas. Rick, great to have you back with us. How are you?

[Rick Wurster]

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

[Carol]

Well, we are so glad to have you back with us. It feels like 2026 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, wealth 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 Wurster]

Well, 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 convenience, not just in financial services, but I think across most industries the way that reflects itself for 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]

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]

And you thought we were going to warm you up. We weren't. We're just going right in.

[Rick Wurster]

First, I distinguish 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. Wow. 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 van Duol's, the DraftKings and the Robin Hoods.

[Tim]

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 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 Wurster]

I think if you want to take a position on what the employment report is going to be at the end of the month or how inflation is 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, 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 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]

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 Wurster]

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 24x5 trading for active traders. We continue to make our mobile app even stronger for those that want to actively trade and do so 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 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 that are going to have the most impact on our clients wealth.

[Carol]

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 Wurster]

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 in the return enhancement from alternatives investments. And you know, in the past decades or multiple decades there 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 thrilled to bridge that gap and excited for what that could mean for our clients wealth.

[Carol]

Hey Rick, 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 leaders 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 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 Tuama 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 something like this from the President that definitely has markets moving to the upside.

[Rick Wurster]

Yeah, I don't, I don't think any of that surprises us. We're still within 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, begins with starting big in your requests and then negotiating to something that 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, and this is the kind of environment in which we thr 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 on how to navigate periods like this 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]

You know, the. We had some reporting in recent days about the New York Stock Exchange exploring ways for 24. 7 trading of certain assets. And I'm curious, crypto kind of paved the way for that because a lot of people can trade crypto24.7, what do you think of the ability for people to trade stocks 24 7?

[Rick Wurster]

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. It's usually only a couple of a percent. The vast majority of trading happens within the market hours. And I, 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. 7 is certainly very appealing and. 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]

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

[Rick Wurster]

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]

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 Wurster, he is the president, CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation, joining us there from Texas.