When Goldman Sachs
Leave it to Goldman to turn those same grapes into sweet dessert wine. Its shot to the discounters appears to be validated this morning, as Charles Schwab
Client assets have risen by 26% over the past year, but traders took to the sidelines. Daily average revenue trades clocked in 27% lower than the previous November. That makes sense, for anyone who remembers the rounds of panic selling that triggered opportunistic buying in November 2008. However, last month's trading activity also posted an 11% sequential dip from October.
That's not what you want to hear from a company that's successfully adding new accounts.
But wait -- Schwab's story gets worse. Goldman Sachs predicted that margins and fee revenue would come under pressure in a low-interest-rate environment. Now Schwab is crying uncle over management-fee waivers on its proprietary money market funds. It sees a roughly $108 million hit in waived fees alone during the current quarter, during which its profitability per share is expected to be $0.02 to $0.04 lower than in the third quarter. Analysts were expecting the current quarter's net income to match the $0.17 a share Schwab delivered during Q3.
Schwab isn't an island. If low interest rates and waning trading activity are weighing on the brokerage, those factors are probably denting TD AMERITRADE
Come back, Schwab traders.
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