By Andrew Welsch

The amount of net new money that Charles Schwab brought in last month plummeted, but it came as no surprise for Wall Street.

The Westlake, Texas-based company typically sees an outflow of money from brokerage accounts (and thus a decline in net new assets) during April as customers make withdrawals to pay their taxes.

Investors appeared to take the news in stride, bidding up Schwab shares by 1% at 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The S&P 500 index was up just 0.03%.

Charles Schwab brought in just $2.7 billion in net new money last month, a 95% decline from March, but an improvement over the $1 billion the company reported for April 2024, according to Schwab's monthly activity report.

Schwab added 439,000 new brokerage accounts during April, a 22% increase over April 2024 and up 13% from March 2025. Transactional sweep cash, which represents customers' uninvested dollars, declined by $4.5 billion to end the month at $403.3 billion, Schwab said.

The data were in line with seasonal trends, and the increase in brokerage accounts was an "indicator of a healthy organic growth rate, wrote Jefferies equity analyst Daniel T. Fannon in a research note Wednesday Fannon rates Schwab's stock a Buy.

Schwab is one of the nation's largest brokerage and wealth management companies, and its net new asset figure is watched closely by analysts and shareholders.

Schwab ended the month with $9.89 trillion in total client assets, up 12% from April 2024 and flat compared with March 2025. The period included a sharp selloff following Trump's "liberation day" tariff announcement and a subsequent rebound as Trump dialed back some of his tariffs.

Schwab said investor trading activity was strong during April, with daily average trades increasing 14% month over month to 8.36 million. Other brokerage firms experienced similar upticks in investor activity. For example, Robinhood Markets reported Wednesday that daily average revenue trades for equity, options, and crypto were up 28%, 50%, and 25% year over year, respectively.

Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com

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May 14, 2025 16:06 ET (20:06 GMT)

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