Newsroom

Bloomberg “The Close”

October 17, 2025

Scarlet Fu: It is time for the stock of the hour, and we’re looking at Charles Schwab. Its stock has gained 27% this year, outperforming its financial peers and the broader market. In its latest quarterly earnings, the firm reported more than $134 billion in total net new assets. That is a 48% increase from a year earlier. Schwab benefitting from a surge in retail investing activity, which means there’s no better time than to speak with Rick Wurster. He is President and CEO of Charles Schwab. And I’m pleased to say Bloomberg The Close Anchor Romaine Bostick joins us for this conversation. Rick, let me start with you, of course. The third quarter results topped estimates overall, and the big number was the total net new assets surging, as I mentioned, growing 48% year-over-year. What was the single biggest contributor to that? 

Rick Wurster: I think it’s that we’re delivering for clients. We’ve seen our clients have contribute $356 billion of net new assets to our company this year, and it's, I think it’s a reflection of there are no trade-offs when you work for Schwab, with Schwab. We meet you where you are digitally. We are here for you if you want to call in. We are in 400 branches across the country where we are helping people navigate their financial lives every day. We are in the outcomes business. We put our arms around our clients and help them get to where they want to be in their financial life. And that’s why clients continue to trust us with their assets. 

Scarlet Fu: And we certainly saw that with the big bank results, where trading desks are just minting money here. There’s a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of engagement markets right now, but what are some of the structural reasons that’s driving this higher level of engagement? 

Rick Wurster: I think there are a couple of things driving the higher level of engagement. First, in the pandemic, a lot of people became interested in trading. My daughter, who’s 21, traded for the first time in the pandemic and continues to be excited about investing in stocks. And I think that she is typical of many young investors. I also believe that there is a lot of news flow in this administration. The government is moving quickly. That creates activity for investors. I also think the elimination of commissions in our industry has allowed anyone to be an investor. It used to be that you had to pay every time he wanted to trade. If you had $100 or $500, that was a big barrier. That barrier was removed. I think it's a combination of things driving a lot of interest in investing. Importantly, the markets being up a lot the last couple of years is also likely playing a role. 

Romaine Bostick: There is also a question about keeping those people tethered to the platform, even when markets are down, even when they are not necessarily trading. And you know, we have seen some of the newer entrants into this market trying to be the everything app for all things financial. Does Schwab fall into that category? 

Rick Wurster: Well, we, I think there is a bull market for convenience in our country. People want to handle more of their financial life in one place. And so we’re seeing incredible growth of our wealth business, of our lending businesses. What we see with our clients is a real demand to do more with us. They want help to guide them to where they want to be in their financial life. And if we’re dealing with active traders, they want thoughts on what looks interesting, and they want our research and our service and support. There is a lot of demand for convenience, and that includes handling more of your life in one financial institution. The average 50-year-old in our country has seven financial services relationships in their lives. So I think that people would love to have fewer, and Schwab is all about making that possible. 

Romaine Bostick: There is also the question about having broader access to a broader array of assets. I think we’re all from a certain generation where people had stocks, people had bonds, maybe you had some real estate or something else. But now you have crypto, you have private assets, you have commodities and things like that as well. How are you structuring the platform right now to get people greater access to that, particularly with some of their newer assets like crypto as well as private assets, alternative assets? 

Rick Wurster: For 50 years, we've always stood for investor choice. We want clients to be able to come to Schwab and be able to participate in the assets and the securities that they want to participate in. I do think at the moment we’re not talking enough about the benefits of long-term investing. The merits of owning equities, sticking with them, watching earnings grow and watching the company become more productive and the equity growing. That has worked, you know, over many decades and I think will continue to. 

Romaine Bostick: But what about in the private space now? When you look at the number of big companies that are still private? I mean you talk about, take any company over $100 million, 90% of them are in the private space right now, and a lot of people want access to that. They want that growth and development that we used to look to the public markets for. They want access to that in the privates as well.

Rick Wurster: I agree. And privates are growing interest for our clients. The way we’re bringing that is through a retail alternatives platform where we have opportunities to invest in private equity and private credit, in hedge funds. And so, our investors are taking advantage of that. We also just announced a new partnership with an Indian-based company called Qapita, which allows us to manage the cap tables for private companies. And now we’re serving that group of private companies and allows us to help with their investors and their management teams that are creating wealth, and we’re able to help them with that. So, I do think there is demand for that and we are here for our clients to help them. 

Scarlet Fu: So there’s demand for crypto. There’s demand for private assets. What about demand for binary trades like prediction markets? A lot of similar platforms are making arrangements, making deals with exchanges to do more of that. Is that something you are looking into? 

Rick Wurster: You know, we’re going to keep an eye on the prediction markets. We, for 50 years, have always wanted to be the firm where we can deliver what clients want and need. To date, we haven't seen a lot of interest in it or clients asking for prediction markets. And if you look at the data at the folks that have gotten into prediction markets, there hasn't been a lot of volume in the things that I would say are related to financial metrics. Like what’s going to happen with the employment report or the inflation report. All the action is around events like sports or elections. And that, at this point, is not something that we’re pursuing. But we’re going to keep an eye on the prediction market, and if that is something we hear more and more that our clients want, then we’ll be there, because we always want to deliver what they want. 

Scarlet Fu: This week we had some nervousness. Of course, we’ve heard about the bankruptcies of Tricolor and First Brands, and of course, then you had banks revealing that they are victims of loan fraud, and it definitely caused concern yesterday. It’s come back a little bit here, but I'm curious how that shows up in the nervousness of your retail investor base. Certainly, prices have gotten extended and there is a lot of concern about whether there is an AI bubble. What does that mean for Charles Schwab's clients and how are you addressing those? 

Rick Wurster: You know, I was in a branch a couple weeks ago in New Jersey, and I was visiting with my colleagues there, and a couple came in who had been a client of Schwab for 30 years. And we had helped them pay off their student loans. We helped their kids learn how to invest. And their wealth had grown far beyond what they had expected, in part because the markets have done so well. And they were coming in to ask us, “We’ve got more wealth than we expected to have. How do we protect it?” And I would say that’s one of the number-one conversations we are having to clients, particularly related to concentrated positions in stocks, because there’s a lot of stocks that have created a lot of wealth that have become a meaningful proportion of people's portfolios, and they’re coming in and asking, “How do I deal with this large position?” And we have lots of ways to help them. 

Romaine Bostick: Are you confident right now in the stability of financial markets and the economy? 

Rick Wurster: I think you look at the economy, I like to look at markets. You look at the 10-year, it’s still near 4%. The real yield’s about 1.7% on the 10-year. To me, that’s not indicative of an economy that is near or in recession. Credit spreads are still pretty tight. Employment reports are reasonable. So I think we’re in a window where the economy is performing just fine. And you see that in markets. I mean, we are just a couple of days off of markets hitting all-time highs, and that’s rare for that to happen if you are in a difficult period of economics. 

Romaine Bostick: And you see the ability of that to continue, or at least you see sort of the makings, the underpinnings, the foundations for that to continue? 

Rick Wurster: I think as we sit here today, the economy seems to be in fine health. We’ll keep a close eye on it. The thing that makes me perhaps the most nervous is there's not a lot of hiring at the moment. There’s not a lot of layoffs either, but if there were to be layoffs, there’s not enough hiring to offset that. So I think that would be something that, if that were to happen, that could create some weakness in employment, and that would spill over likely in the markets. 

Scarlet Fu: Are your clients taking on a lot of risk, in that you mentioned concentrated positions, but are they borrowing money to get into those positions, and continue building on those positions? 

Rick Wurster: I think clients are trying to be thoughtful about where they invest and how they make money. We have seen our margin loans grow to an all-time record around $97 billion at the end of the quarter, but we have to put that in proportion to the $11.6 trillion that our clients hold. So, it’s less than 1% of their assets, so I wouldn't say that they are overextended, but they want to maximize wealth, and they are looking to take advantage of opportunities as they see them. 

Scarlet Fu: As volatility increases, like we’ve seen this week, are they trading more, are they engaging more, or are they backing off in those instances? 

Rick Wurster: You know, our clients trade more when there is more volatility, and they tend to be somewhat countercyclical. I would say that last few weeks, they’ve been buying dips and selling rips. And so we do see on days like yesterday and the more volatile days, we’ve seen in the last week or two, we see an elevated level of training. 

Romaine Bostick: Long-term, where is your growth going to come from for the company? 

Rick Wurster: We have tremendous growth opportunity in a number of fronts. Number one, we serve 16,000 advisors and are the number one supporter of independent advisers in our country. We expect that to be a really robust growth market because of the bull market for convenience and the desire for clients to have a fiduciary help in their financial life. So that has been a growth market, and I expect it to continue to be. On the retail side, we are leaning into an old story, which is having physical branches and real relationships with people. Because we find when we do that, that we have stronger client outcomes, greater client satisfaction. When we have a personalized relationship with a client, their satisfaction score goes up 10 points, and they do more business with us. They bring about twice the amount of net new assets to us. So we’re leaning into relationships. 

Romaine Bostick: Where are those branches coming up regionally? Where’s the biggest concentration? 

Rick Wurster: You know, we did a quantitative analysis of where our clients were and where our branches were. And the places where we were underpenetrated were Florida, Texas, and some parts of the West Coast. So we’re moving to where the wealth sits and where we have an opportunity to serve them. But also lots of growth opportunity in things like alternatives. We’re gonna launch crypto in the first half of next year, so we’re winning with our core client and expanding into other areas, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. 

Scarlet Fu: You mention launching crypto in the first half of next year. As you close out 2025 and look ahead to 2026, what is the single biggest challenge that you anticipate for next year? 

Rick Wurster: Well, the biggest thing we focus on every day is nailing it for our 46 million clients. I go to bed and wake up in the morning thinking about, ‘How do we do the best job for our clients?’ Because we’ve got 46 million clients that rely upon us to nail it for them, and they count on us to help them in their financial life. And we want to do everything that we can to help them. We’re not just an app. We want to sit side-by-side with our clients and get them to where they need to be in their financial life. 

Scarlet Fu: Rick, thank you for joining us today! Rick Wurster, President and CEO of Charles Schwab, and our thanks as well to Romaine Bostick.

Forward-Looking Statements

This contains forward-looking statements, which 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. 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 the company’s website (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.

This material is intended for general informational purposes only. This should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. 

All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice in reaction to shifting market conditions. 

All names and market data shown above are for illustrative purposes only and are not a recommendation, offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security.

Investing involves risk, including loss of principal, and for some products and strategies, loss of more than your initial investment.

Diversification strategies do not ensure a profit and cannot protect against losses in a declining market.

Investing in alternative investments is speculative, not suitable for all clients, and generally intended for experienced and sophisticated investors who are willing and able to bear the high economic risks of the investment. Investors should obtain and carefully read the related prospectus or offering memorandum, which will contain the information needed to help evaluate the potential investment and provide important disclosures regarding risks, fees and expenses. 

Digital currencies [such as bitcoin] are highly volatile and not backed by any central bank or government. Digital currencies lack many of the regulations and consumer protections that legal-tender currencies and regulated securities have. Due to the high level of risk, investors should view digital currencies as a purely speculative instrument.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Investment and Insurance Products Are: Not FDIC Insured • Not Insured by Any Federal Government Agency • Not a Deposit or Other Obligation of, or Guaranteed by, the Bank or any of its Affiliates • Subject to Investment Risks, Including Possible Loss of Principal Amount Invested

(1025-XY96)

Rick Wurster IBD Video Interview Transcript

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:30:07
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor) 
Thousands of customers weighed in on who they trust with their money. And one firm swept the investing categories. Each year, Investor's Business Daily in partnership with Technico Metrica Market Intelligence, surveys thousands of consumers to find out which financial firms have truly earned their trust. It's called the Most Trusted Financial Companies Survey. The ranking is based on eight key factors, from financial soundness and product quality to ethics, customer service and confidence in management.

00:00:30:11 - 00:00:58:01
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor) 
And in 2025 Charles Schwab stood out. Schwab ranked highest among ETF and fund companies. Online brokers and wealth managers. Now, that's a clean sweep for a firm that pioneered the discount brokerage business back in 1975. And today manages nearly $11 trillion in client assets. Schwab divisions also took three of the top ten overall spots in IBD's list of the 30 most trusted companies.

00:00:58:07 - 00:01:11:10
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor) 
Now, with Schwab ranking so highly across all of IBD's investing categories, I talked to president and CEO Rick Wurster about how the firm builds trust and where it's headed next. Rick, thanks so much for joining us.

00:01:11:11 - 00:01:13:11
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster) 
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

00:01:13:13 - 00:01:24:06
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
Of course. So to start off, what does Charles Schwab do to earn the highest trust of its customers? And why does trust matter to financial institutions like Schwab?

00:01:24:08 - 00:01:46:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Well, I think there's a couple things that help Schwab, be an institution that that clients can trust. Number one is our mission. Our mission is to see through client's eyes and to make our client's financial lives better off. Everything we do as a company is driven by that concept and that idea that we're going to help clients live their best financial life.

00:01:47:00 - 00:02:16:20
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And that drives trust. When clients see you acting in their best interest continually and in every decision. It builds that trust. It's so important. Second thing I think that we do that builds trust amongst our clients is that we don't have any trade offs in what we offer to clients. We offer a great service, whether you want that service on the phone via our industry leading app, or whether you want to walk into one of our 400 branches that are in many local communities across our country.

00:02:16:22 - 00:02:51:17
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
We're there for clients in every way. And we do so with great value in our products and services. We're not making a trade off between great service and what clients have to pay. We're giving clients the best of both. And I think that creates trust. And finally, the second part of your question, the reason I think trust is so important is because we're asking clients to take money that they've spent a long period of time and hard work to earn, to bring that to our company and to trust us with the advice they're giving in and trust to leaving it with us and knowing that over time it's going to grow and that is built

00:02:51:17 - 00:03:03:00
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
upon trust. So it's critical that we have that trust, and we couldn't be more honored to be the most trusted financial institution in the industry. And that's why we think we are.

00:03:03:02 - 00:03:09:07
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
And going off of that with $11 trillion in assets. How do you keep client relationships personal?

00:03:09:14 - 00:03:33:14
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
At Schwab, personalization is at the heart of every relationship that we have. And it starts with meeting the clients where they are. We have many clients that love to walk into one of our 400 plus branches across, our country and talk to somebody. We have many that like to deal with, the digital app or calling in the phone and talk to one of our tax trusts and the state experts.

00:03:33:16 - 00:03:54:10
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
But personalization is about being where our clients are and meeting them where they are. I try to visit, roughly 30 to 60 branches of our, of ours every single year. And in doing so, I get to hear the great stories of the way we deliver a personalized service to our to our clients. One stands out for me this year.

00:03:54:10 - 00:04:11:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
I remember back in April when markets were volatile and and tariffs were on, and then they were off. And during that period, I was speaking to one of our financial consultants who works in our Los Gatos branch in California. And I called her and she she couldn't speak when I picked up and and her voice was, was gone.

00:04:11:22 - 00:04:33:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And I asked her, I said, Tracy, why is your voice gone? And she says, well, I've spent this week calling every single one of my clients to make sure that they were okay and that they were navigating this volatility. And, and to me, that's what personalization is about. It's about knowing your clients when they need you, being there for them, and proactively reaching out to help them in their financial journey with whatever they need.

00:04:34:00 - 00:04:38:05
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
What trends are you seeing right now in how clients are approaching investing?

00:04:38:07 - 00:04:58:18
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
I see a couple of trends in our industry that, to me, the number one trend that I see is what I would call a bull market for convenience in our country. I think that's true in every facet of our life. Whether you're ordering Uber, you're ordering food. No matter, Amazon or everything in our life has become somewhat more convenient.

00:04:58:19 - 00:05:20:12
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And I think our industry, there's a demand for that as well. And the way that shows up is an increasing demand for advice and wanting a financial institution to help take ownership of a client's financial life and guide them through their financial journey. And we see that in spades in our business. That's why our wealth business has grown so strongly, and we've been increasingly deepening our relationships with clients.

00:05:20:14 - 00:05:44:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
So that we can help them address more of their financial life. The second thing that I think is helping to reshape our industry is artificial intelligence. And I do think this is more than a fad. This will be here for a while. It's helping make our professionals, be more efficient, but it's also helping them have the most cogent answer possible, even for our newer associates that are helping clients.

00:05:45:08 - 00:06:07:06
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And it's going to allow us, over time to, to enable us to engage with our clients in a different way than we have historically, and to reach a set of clients that we might not be able to reach in a personalized way, but to do so through, artificial intelligence. And then the third trend I'd call out is what's happening in the crypto and tokenization space.

00:06:07:06 - 00:06:31:14
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And that'll be an area to watch. Certainly could change the way people transact, and the way people move money so that, that's an exciting development to watch. And we're participating in that trend as well. In fact, about 20% of all the crypto ETF asset ETF assets in our country are held here at Schwab by, by Schwab clients who are participating in our client.

00:06:31:15 - 00:06:34:06
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
It's something of, great interest to our clients.

00:06:34:10 - 00:06:46:15
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
So you mentioned artificial intelligence, financial services are being reshaped by AI, digital platforms and cybersecurity. How do you innovate fast enough to stay competitive without losing client trust?

00:06:46:16 - 00:07:13:09
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
That's a it's a great question. And innovation has been at the heart of Schwab for the last 50 years. We we got our start and our acceleration as a company because we innovated in the way we were charging clients for commissions. We brought the price of commissions down when everybody else was raising. And and over time we, you know, came out with a new way of engaging with mutual funds and went online trading before others and then went to zero.

00:07:13:09 - 00:07:35:17
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
We were the first major brokerage to go to zero in terms of equity commissions. So we've constantly been at the forefront of, of innovation, and we've always done it in a way to drive client benefit, which engender client trust. And I think when you put the client at the forefront of every innovation, that you're doing something differently because it's benefiting the client.

00:07:35:19 - 00:07:57:16
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
That's what drives trust. Some of the innovations I've seen in the market more recently, I worry, are more about things that are good for the company rather than or good for the individual, and those are the ones that I think can lead to distrust. But our focus on innovation has always been seeing through client's eyes, doing what's right for them for their long term, financial future.

00:07:57:18 - 00:08:02:09
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And when we do that and innovate in that way, I think that builds financial trust.

00:08:02:11 - 00:08:10:14
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
And Gen Z consumers approach money differently than their parents. How do you earn their trust, and is it something that you're building towards?

00:08:10:16 - 00:08:39:01
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Absolutely. At Schwab, working with Gen Zers is of critical importance. And a couple things I'd share that, Gen Z investors are actually 45% more likely than millennials to have started investing by the age of 21. That's a great thing for their long term financial success. And we're seeing that at Schwab, too. In fact, 1 in 6 of our new to firm households are under the age of 24 and 30% are under the age of 30.

00:08:39:01 - 00:09:06:06
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
So we are winning with the young investors. And part of why we're winning with young investors is we're going where they are. In a personalized way. So many Gen Zers are on TikTok and Instagram and, and, YouTube. And that's where we're going with relevant content to them. And in fact, no financial services company has more followers on YouTube than we have.

00:09:06:08 - 00:09:38:20
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And we've engaged, some of the TikTok personalities that are actual Schwab clients with do it yourself videos or golf videos that that draw in big audiences where they are also talking about things that Schwab can do. So we've we've tried to appeal to the Gen Z investor by going where they are and the type of an investor, Gen Z investor, I think love Schwab is the serious investor who wants to invest for the long term, that's being engaged in stocks and and wants advice on how to pay off their student loans or how to save for their first house.

00:09:38:20 - 00:09:56:14
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And they can do all of that at Schwab. And and so we're going where they are, are, engaging them, telling them about all the things we can do. And they're coming to Schwab and having a great experience. And I couldn't be more excited that they're so engaged and investing. I think it's a great thing for their long run financial health.

00:09:57:02 - 00:10:13:08
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
I think it's so interesting to how Gen Z is so engaged on TikTok and on Instagram to consume all this financial content. I mean, there's a lot of content creators, but there's a lot of people that want to learn, especially on social media. So that's been super interesting to see, especially from my perspective as Gen Z.

00:10:13:10 - 00:10:31:05
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Yeah, I agree, it's been fascinating. And and I think ultimately a really good thing for Gen Zers because they're getting engaged and investing at such an early age and eager to learn. So it's been been just a wonderful thing and all these different platforms have had a lot have allowed it to flourish.

00:10:32:06 - 00:10:41:03
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
And since acquiring TD Ameritrade in 2020 what have been the biggest benefits and what opportunities from that deal are still ahead?

00:10:41:05 - 00:11:08:21
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Now this is a historic integration in fact the largest ever in our industry. We transitioned over $1.9 trillion of assets and 17 million accounts from Ameritrade. It's been, an enormous benefit to us as a company to be able to, work with these clients and to be able to help them. And likewise, I think it's been a benefit to all of our clients, whether they were a Schwab client to begin with or an Ameritrade client to begin with.

00:11:08:23 - 00:11:35:18
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Because now we can bring the best of what Ameritrade had, which is what I think was, was and is the best trading platform in the industry, combined with what everything Schwab can do, which is wealth management advice, tax trust and estate expertise. On the ready, a digital experience that can't be made, and 400 branches full of people that want to help you in your financial journey.

00:11:35:20 - 00:11:58:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
So the combination of the two has been very powerful, and we've been thrilled to see the Ameritrade clients engaging in, activities beyond trading. They're taking out pledged asset lines or mortgages through, through the Schwab Experience. They're asking for advice on how to manage their assets through Schwab. And and ultimately that's of great benefit to, to them.

00:11:58:22 - 00:12:06:00
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And so it's just been a wonderful combination. It's great for clients and been, been a real benefit for the firm as well.

00:12:06:12 - 00:12:13:10
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
And to wrap things up here, you took over as CEO in January. What new directions are you hoping to take the company?

00:12:13:12 - 00:12:34:06
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
There's been four things we've been focused on in 2025. Number one is driving growth. We want to serve more clients and we want to serve them more deeply. I mentioned earlier there's a bull market for convenience in our country. If we can meet more of a client's financial, needs here at Schwab, that's going to make the client happier and it's going to be better for us.

00:12:34:06 - 00:12:56:22
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
So that's that's number one. Number two, we've really been focused on nailing the basics for clients with 45 million client accounts and nearly $11 trillion of client assets. If every day we nail the basics of every interaction, every experience that the client has, they're going to continue to do a lot of business with us, and we will have a growing, healthy firm.

00:12:57:00 - 00:13:28:23
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Third is we want to be a, as an efficient firm as possible. The more efficient a firm we can be, the more money we can take and invest back in the client experience and back in our clients. And so we've been driving efficiency throughout our throughout our system and fourth, we're focused on our people. We know ultimately part of what helps us stand apart at Schwab and create such a great client experience is that our people care so deeply about making a difference for our clients, and so we want to invest in our people.

00:13:29:01 - 00:13:38:01
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
And, those are our four focus areas as a company. And, and, so far this year, we're having a great year. And just picking up right where we left off last year.

00:13:38:03 - 00:13:40:19
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
Rick Wurster, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:13:40:21 - 00:13:43:19
Speaker 2 (Rick Wurster)
Thanks for having me on. It's been a been a lot of fun. Nice to see you.

00:13:43:21 - 00:14:09:04
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
You too. Schwab may have swept the investing categories, but they weren't the only firms investors put their trust in. Vanguard, known for its low cost index funds strategy, was also among the most trusted companies and online brokers, wealth managers and fund companies. This year, Vanguard launched a new advice and wealth management division, aiming to democratize financial advice the same way it did with indexing.

00:14:09:05 - 00:14:40:02
Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
Fidelity investments, which last year held the top trust ratings in the investment categories, ranked among the most trusted companies again in 2025. Overall, USAA took the number one spot in IBD's list of the 30 most trusted financial companies. USAA provides financial services to active U.S. military service members, their families, and veterans. Now, to learn more about IBD's most trusted financial companies, visit investors.com for Investors Business Daily.

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Speaker 1 (Clare O'Connor)
I'm Clare O'Connor.