Charles Schwab (SCHW) said early Tuesday that its net income soared 58% from last year to $326 million. Its net revenues improved 15% to nearly $1.5 billion.
"Our contemporary full-service investing model continued to resonate with investors during the first quarter," said CEO Walt Bettinger, in a press release. "We gathered $34.2 billion of net new assets during the quarter, a 6% annualized organic growth rate, and 258,000 new brokerage accounts, up 6% year over year."
According to Schwab, it now has some $2.3 trillion in client assets. Trading activity improved in early 2014, with the firm making an average of more than 550,000 total trades a day during the first quarter.
"More significantly, however, our work to build awareness of our professional advice capabilities continued during the quarter, and we ended March with approximately half of all client assets receiving some form of ongoing advisory service," Bettinger explained.
Some $974 billion of client assets are shepherded by independent advisors, and $159 billion are part of the firm's retail advisory program, up 16% and 17%, respectively, over the first quarter of 2013.
Schwab now serves 9.2 million active brokerage accounts and 933,000 banking accounts, up 4% and 5%, respectively, from year-ago levels.
"Schwab's unique business model is able to produce solid operating results while enabling clients to invest as they choose," the CEO noted.
Schwab Advisor Services
