Revenue for Charles Schwab's third quarter of 2026 came in at $7.17 billion — narrowly beneath the $7.2 billion that analysts had projected — while adjusted earnings per share of $1.69 cleared the consensus forecast of $1.66, a combination the firm characterised as its strongest quarter on record. Shares dipped to $92.96 in premarket activity, down roughly four percent from the prior session's close of $96.80.

Per-share earnings on an adjusted basis climbed 29 percent against the prior-year figure, landing at $1.69 — a level the company had not previously reached. Quarterly revenue hit an all-time high of $7.17 billion, reflecting a 17% expansion against the same period a year earlier.

A 14% climb in net interest revenue brought the total to just under $3.5 billion, with expansion in the lending book providing the underlying lift. A 16% upturn pushed trading revenue to $1.2 billion, underpinned by steady demand from clients. The stock lost close to 4% of its value in premarket activity, even though the company had topped earnings forecasts.

For the full year of 2026, the company's leadership indicated that both revenue and net interest margin are on track to land at the lower boundary of the range previously outlined to investors. Across its retail, advisor, and wealth divisions, the company posted what it described as a quarter of widespread operational gains.

Revenue at the firm was lifted by a pickup in client trading volumes, an expansion in lending activity, and upward movement in fees tied to asset management, with cost discipline allowing a greater share of that revenue to flow through to the bottom line. Quarterly net revenue climbed to $7.2 billion, a figure the company had not previously posted, reflecting a 17% advance over the corresponding period a year earlier. The adjusted pre-tax profit margin reached 54.8%, a gain of roughly 350 basis points against the figure recorded twelve months prior.

During the quarter, Schwab brought 1.2 million new brokerage accounts onto its books, while a separate tally put client touchpoints with the firm at 1.8 billion across the year to date. Tallied across the measurement period, net new core assets landed at $190 billion — a figure 38% ahead of where the same metric stood twelve months prior.

Totalling $7.17 billion, the company's intake for the period ran 17% ahead of the same stretch a year prior. Earnings per share on an adjusted basis landed at $1.69, reflecting a 29% increase against the prior-year period. Climbing 14% against the prior year's comparable period, the division's net interest revenue landed at just under $3.5 billion.

Fees tied to asset management and administration reached $1.9 billion, reflecting a 14% climb against the prior-year period. Revenue from trading activity reached $1.2 billion, reflecting a 16% gain against the prior-year period. On a typical trading day, the volume of completed transactions came to 10.7 million.

Costs on an adjusted basis landed at roughly $3.2 billion, reflecting a nine-percent climb from the same period a year earlier. The pre-tax profit margin, on an adjusted basis, landed at 54.8% — a gain of roughly 350 basis points when measured against the same period a year earlier. Across all margin accounts combined, outstanding balances reached a total of $187.9 billion.

Aggregated lending balances across the banking segment reached $72.3 billion, reflecting a 35% expansion against the figure recorded twelve months prior. At the time of reporting, the company's total stock-market valuation stood at roughly $159.65 billion. Over the trailing twelve-month period, the company generated a return on equity of 22%.

Earnings per share at Schwab cleared analyst forecasts, though revenue fell just short of those same projections. Earnings per share on an adjusted basis landed at $1.69, nudging three cents past the consensus forecast of $1.66 — a margin that put the result roughly 1.8% ahead of what analysts had projected. Revenue came in at $7.17 billion, trailing the $7.20 billion analyst consensus by roughly $30 million — a gap of around 0.4%.

Trading in Schwab stock ahead of the opening bell put the price at $92.96, a drop of roughly four percent from the prior session's close of $96.80. Trading at a level roughly 19% under the one-year high of $114.53, the stock nevertheless held a position above $83.96 — the floor of its annual trading range.

Separately, the company addressed a drop in transactional sweep cash balances during those discussions, a trend that carries implications for how funding patterns develop and how investors read net interest income prospects. Executives projected that several patterns from the third quarter — among them healthy client engagement, expansion in lending, and elevated trading activity — would carry forward into the final three months of the year.

Heading into the final quarter, Schwab's net interest margin is projected to widen by roughly 25 to 30 basis points when measured against the same period a year earlier. For the full year of 2026, both revenue and net interest margin are forecast to land toward the bottom of the ranges outlined during the summer business update. Costs for the full year are now projected to land at the lower boundary of what had previously been guided.

For 2026, the firm is projecting operating leverage in the vicinity of 800 basis points on the positive side — a figure that lands at roughly twice what had been anticipated when the year opened. Planned spending in the areas of artificial intelligence, trading tools, cryptocurrency access, and wealth-management features is expected to continue, the firm indicated.

Three product directions are taking shape at Schwab: broader deployment of the AI assistant Charlie, additional prediction-market tools tied to financial events, and a proprietary long/short vehicle built on direct-indexing infrastructure. Wurster told investors the firm was outpacing its peers and that a client-focused operating approach had helped push both revenue and growth to their highest recorded levels.

Wurster pointed to survey data showing that roughly three-quarters of U.S. investors are already drawing on AI tools, while more than nine in ten express a preference for keeping human advisors in the loop alongside that technology — a pairing that, in his view, aligns with the approach Schwab has built around combining people with digital platforms.

Adjusted earnings per share climbed 29% against the prior-year period to reach $1.69 — a figure the company had not previously posted — while the pre-tax profit margin on an adjusted basis came in at 54.8%, according to Chief Financial Officer Mike Verdeschi. Total bank loan balances climbed to $72.3 billion, a move the statement attributed largely to borrower appetite for pledged asset line loans.

Among the vulnerabilities flagged were the business's exposure to shifting market conditions, a sequential drop in sweep cash balances, uncertainty around whether the long/short programme can be expanded at scale, the tension between holding down costs and reinvesting for growth, and rivalry from players operating in crypto, prediction markets, and AI-driven tools. During the earnings call, questions from analysts centred on how the company plans to generate revenue from artificial intelligence, the direction of its cash position, and the dynamics of its long/short business operations.

Wurster pointed to gains in client engagement, tailored wealth guidance, and staff output as early signs that AI is taking hold across the business. Falling cash balances, Verdeschi noted, pointed to a lift in how clients were feeling about the market and a return of capital into investment activity — rather than any deeper, longer-term repositioning.

Appetite for the long/short offering has held up, according to Wurster, though Schwab pulled back on expansion around mid-September to keep the service on a footing it can maintain over time. Plans call for rolling out a proprietary long/short product through the firm's direct indexing platform at a future point. Schwab's trajectory for prediction markets, as relayed by Wurster, points toward broadening the product range beyond simple binary options to cover financially oriented events — earnings releases and economic data among them — while the firm moves deliberately on round-the-clock trading, citing concerns around liquidity and order execution.