The Charles Schwab Corporation

Is Charles Schwab publicly traded?
Yes. The Charles Schwab Corporation trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SCHW. Founder Charles Schwab is co-chairman and the largest individual shareholder, but no single holder controls the company.

When was Charles Schwab founded?
The company was founded in 1971 in San Francisco by Charles R. Schwab as First Commander Corporation, renamed Charles Schwab & Co. in 1973. It became a discount brokerage pioneer after the SEC abolished fixed commissions in May 1975.

Who owns Charles Schwab now?
Schwab is owned by its public shareholders. Major institutional investors including Vanguard and BlackRock hold large stakes, and founder Charles Schwab remains the biggest individual shareholder. Toronto-Dominion Bank's stake from the TD Ameritrade merger was sold in 2025.

Does Schwab own TD Ameritrade?
Yes. Schwab acquired TD Ameritrade in an all-stock transaction that closed in October 2020 for approximately $22 billion. The TD Ameritrade brand was retired after client accounts and the thinkorswim platform completed migration to Schwab in 2023 and 2024.

Who is the CEO of Charles Schwab?
Rick Wurster has been president and chief executive officer since January 1, 2025. He succeeded Walt Bettinger, who led the company from 2008 through the end of 2024. Wurster joined Schwab in 2016.

Where is Charles Schwab headquartered?
Charles Schwab is headquartered in Westlake, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. The company moved its headquarters from San Francisco, where it was founded, to Texas in 2021.

Charles R. Schwab founded First Commander Corporation in San Francisco in 1971 as a discount brokerage and investment newsletter publisher. The firm was renamed Charles Schwab & Co. in 1973. Its opportunity came in May 1975, when the Securities and Exchange Commission abolished fixed brokerage commissions, an event the industry calls May Day. While established firms raised prices, Schwab cut them, building one of the first true discount brokerages for individual investors.

Through the late 1970s and 1980s Schwab pioneered services now standard across the industry: 24-hour quote service, extended-hours customer support, and no-fee IRAs. In 1983 Bank of America acquired the firm for approximately $55 million. The fit proved poor, and in 1987 Schwab led a management buyback for about $280 million and took the company public on the NYSE that September, weeks before the October 1987 crash.

The 1990s were Schwab's most creative decade. The Mutual Fund OneSource platform, launched in 1992, let customers buy funds from hundreds of families in one account and built Schwab's custody and distribution economics. The company embraced internet trading early, launching e.Schwab in 1996 and cutting web trade prices aggressively, which preserved its customer base through the dot-com era even as it squeezed margins.

The 2000s brought missteps and corrections. Schwab acquired U.S. Trust in 2000 for approximately $2.7 billion seeking wealthier clients, then sold it to Bank of America in 2007 after integration disappointed. It acquired CyberTrader and later optionsXpress in 2011 for about $1 billion, building its active trader capability. The 2008 financial crisis hit Schwab less hard than banks, though it suffered losses tied to its Schwab YieldPlus bond fund, which it settled with regulators and shareholders.

The defining transaction of the modern company was the acquisition of TD Ameritrade, announced in November 2019 and closed in October 2020 in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $22 billion. The combination added roughly 12 million client accounts, the thinkorswim trading platform, and scale in every business. Client and platform integration concluded in 2023 and 2024, when TD Ameritrade accounts and thinkorswim were migrated to Schwab systems and the TD Ameritrade brand retired. In 2019 Schwab also acquired the investment management accounts of USAA's members and, the same year, eliminated online equity commissions industry-wide, triggering an era of zero-commission trading.

Schwab moved its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Westlake, Texas, in 2021, consolidating staff at a campus near Fort Worth. Walt Bettinger retired as CEO at the end of 2024 after 16 years, and Rick Wurster, who had joined Schwab in 2016 and served as president, succeeded him on January 1, 2025.

The 2023 regional banking turmoil created the company's most serious recent challenge. Rising interest rates left Schwab Bank with large unrealized losses on held-to-maturity securities and prompted clients to move idle cash from low-yielding bank sweep accounts into money market funds, a pattern called cash sorting. Schwab paid down expensive supplemental funding through 2024 and 2025 while growing client assets, and by FY2025 reported record results: $23.9 billion in net revenue, $8.9 billion in GAAP net income, $11.90 trillion in client assets, and a stock price that rose from $74.01 to $99.91 during the year.

Schwab publishes corporate responsibility reporting covering community investment, financial literacy programming, and workforce development. Its Schwab Foundation supports financial education through grants and employee volunteering, and the company operates financial literacy initiatives targeted at young adults and underserved communities.

On environmental matters, Schwab has set operational emissions reduction targets for its facilities and data centers, though its footprint is modest relative to industrial companies. Governance metrics are a stronger focus: the company emphasizes ethics training, fiduciary standards in its advisory operations, and board-level risk oversight following the 2023 balance sheet episode.

Schwab has ranked at or near the top of J.D. Power's U.S. Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study multiple times, including first place rankings in the do-it-yourself and advised segments in recent years. The company has appeared on Fortune's Most Admired Companies list in the securities category and on Forbes and Barron's rankings of leading brokerages and wealth platforms. Its thinkorswim platform is a perennial award winner in StockBrokers.com and Barron's broker reviews for options and futures trading.

2023 balance sheet stress: Rising rates in 2022 and 2023 produced large unrealized losses in Schwab Bank's held-to-maturity bond portfolio and triggered cash sorting by clients. The stock fell sharply in March 2023 amid the regional banking panic, even though Schwab was never at risk of insolvency. The company spent 2024 and 2025 paying down expensive borrowings and returned to record profitability, but the episode remains a case study in duration risk.

Cash sweep litigation: Schwab has faced class action lawsuits alleging it paid unreasonably low rates on idle client cash swept into Schwab Bank while profiting from the spread. Some claims have been dismissed in court while others have proceeded; the issue has also drawn attention from regulators examining whether such arrangements meet fiduciary standards for advisory clients.

Trading outages: Schwab has suffered periodic platform outages during high-volume market events, including disruptions in August 2024 and during the April 2025 tariff-driven volatility, drawing client complaints and FINRA scrutiny typical for large brokers.