Charles Schwab completes the acquisition of TD Ameritrade and starts the integration of the two companies that will be uniquely positioned to serve the investment, trading and wealth management needs of investors across every phase of their financial journeys.⁵

Schwab makes an industry-leading move that eliminates a barrier to making investing more accessible to everyone, reducing U.S. stock, ETF and options online trade commissions from $4.95 to $0.⁴

Many investors want and need help managing their money but don't want to spend a lot of time on it and don't want to pay a fee for the service. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™, offered by Schwab Wealth Investment Advisory, Inc., is an online investment advisory service that builds, monitors, and rebalances your portfolio automatically, making access to automated portfolio management convenient and with no advisory fees, account service fees, or commissions charged.

At Schwab, we believe that every investor deserves accountability. The Schwab Accountability Guarantee™ provides that if, for any reason, a client is not happy with one of our participating investment advisory services, we'll refund the client's service fee from the previous quarter.³ While it's no guarantee against loss, and other fees and expenses may still apply, we stand by our word and will work with the client to make things right.

Personalized low-cost advice may help 401(k) participants reach their retirement goals and achieve better outcomes, but they typically receive single-factor advice found in target-date funds. Schwab Retirement Plan Services, Inc. (SRPS) believed there was another way and developed a groundbreaking approach to the 401(k) combining low-cost index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds offered through SRPS, an FDIC-insured deposit feature, and professional savings and investment advice provided by an independent third-party advisor.

ETFs provide a great way to get access to a range of asset classes and to build a diversified portfolio. But with commissions, an investor who dollar-cost averages can have their investment undercut by expenses. Commission-free ETFs at Schwab broke new ground by making it possible to build a low-cost diversified portfolio simply.²

Managed portfolios provide a convenient way to access professional investment advice, but the cost had been historically high. Schwab Managed Portfolios™ addressed this by providing broadly diversified portfolios with competitive costs.

Clients should have easy access to their money at all times, whether depositing a check or investing in a mutual fund. That's why Schwab Bank created its Investor Checking™ account, to provide investors with banking without unnecessary costs.

Investors deserved a fact-based system to assess whether a stock was right to consider buying, selling, or holding. Stock lists at traditional firms were biased toward "buy" and depended heavily on qualitative, subjective assessments. Schwab didn't think that benefited the clients, so it launched Schwab Equity Ratings, a system that ranked over 3,000 stocks, with equal numbers of buys and sells.

At the risk of substantial cuts to its commission revenue, Schwab embraced low-cost online investing in the early days of the internet because it benefited the consumer.

Mutual fund investors used to face sales loads and other transaction fees through their broker, or had to set up multiple accounts with multiple mutual fund companies to buy direct without transaction fees. Schwab thought this an unnecessary compromise and created Schwab Mutual Fund OneSource®—a one-stop way to invest in a wide array of no-load funds without transaction fees.¹

Serving independent investment advisors, Financial Advisor Service exceeds $1 billion in client assets after just one year of business.

The accepted rule was that firms closed when the markets closed. Schwab understood that clients didn't keep bankers' hours and chose to offer 24/7 order entry and quote service.

When the SEC deregulated securities commissions, many Wall Street firms raised their commissions. Chuck Schwab cut his and established one of the first discount brokerages.