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Investing - Theory, News & General • Schwab - settlement account pays close to nothing heads up

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Something has to pay for free trades. Can’t have it both ways. It’s a business
There are free trades everywhere now. Some other places at least give you some yield on your settlement fund (e.g. Fidelity, Vanguard).
Fidelity and Vanguard run such massively large fund businesses that offering free brokerage trades won't make a significant difference to them in the big picture. As already posted:
Schwab's total assets in mutual funds are miniscule, compared to Fidelity.

About $160 billion vs. about $2.5 trillion, so 15X Schwab:
https://www.morningstar.com/asset-manag ... BN000008ES

https://www.morningstar.com/asset-manag ... BN000008QX
Given that they don’t have trillions held in their own funds, unlike Fidelity and Vanguard, where would you like Schwab to get the money needed to operate their brokerage?

Would you rather pay a monthly fee, pay commission on trades, or is there some other revenue source you'd like them to substitute?
Which is nothing but an excuse for not being competitive. We can argue revenue streams all day, but at the end of the day the value proposition at Fidelity, and even Vanguard, is increasing while Schwab's is decreasing. If they aren't going to offer basic features such as sweep accounts, they at least need to make up for that in other offerings, but they fail at that too. There is so only so long a company can skate by on name recognition and the past.

At its current trajectory, I would not be surprised if Schwab's standing lands among the Merrill, Wells, Citi, and JP Morgan tier -- ok choices, but nothing special and nobody's first pick. So let's keep running this false narrative of poor Schwab not being able to afford sweep accounts (despite it having over $7T AUM), while Fidelity focuses on growth, innovation, and securing the next generation of investors.

Statistics: Posted by Do_Nothing — Tue Jan 02, 2024 3:20 am — Replies 81 — Views 8769



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