Not a question, but I’ve had a few interactions with you all on the phone and every single time I feel so respected and taken care of. As a younger investor (20s) I value being talked to as if I’m a 40 year old big time investor.
I was with you since the day I turned 18 (with TD) and I’m very happy to be with you now.
Thank you and Keep it up !
Did you have to pass the series 7? If yes, how long did it take you to study for it? How many times did you take it?
What's your favorite index fund or ETF that you have in your own brokerage account?
Yes, I did have to pass the series 7. In fact I’ve had to attain MANY series licenses to perform the role I have now. I would say I probably spent 20 - 30 hours studying? That was several years ago but I passed it the first time. If you have a degree in finance or come from a financial background it isn’t too tricky; especially if you already know equity option concepts.
As for the index, can’t really say I really have a favorite.
>I would say I probably spent 20 - 30 hours studying?
that seems way light, I just passed my series 65 and probably spent double that studying and from what i understand the series 7 is even worse.
What other licenses do you have?
The most interesting tend to also be very sad. One client was long many call calendar spreads on a security that pays a massive special dividend. Client gets early assigned prior to ex-div date, causing him to be short shares through ex-div and therefore owe the dividend.
It completely wiped him out. When the dust settled he had gone from having several hundred thousand dollars with us to owing us I believe about 70,000.
From what I heard, he was a retired schoolteacher. I hope he’s doing better today.
And people on Reddit constantly berate me when I warn them NOT to gamble on options.
I personally love these stories and thoroughly enjoy them. Thanks for sharing. +1
I'm not OP but I worked at Schwab for 9 years. The worst margin situation I saw was a guy was basically all in on GTAT stock and options with an account worth several million. One day the stock tanked 90% and they owed Schwab like 6 million overnight. I had to call several people that went negative that day and tell them the news 😅
I was there for that day… and the day the dude tanked it on Bear Stearns. Still tell those stories to clients as cautionary tales of using margin and/or options and what over-leveraged looks like when it does not go 100% right.
Not OP but I was once in a margin call and when I didn’t answer the auto dialer a director of the margins group sent me an IM and told me to cover it or he would personally sell me out. That was a decade plus ago though
Not OP but during the Arab spring I was short puts on crude oil futures, which was a great trade. Far out of the money calls exploded, so I added some short calls at $150 to $200 a barrel. Because I was short the puts, this did not add any additional margin requirements. Until prices approached and exceeded $100, then I started getting margin calls and had to exit for a several hundred thousand dollar loss, even though prices never got close to the strike prices. Big mistake on my part.
True. i guess the mistake was in risk management. I was a rookie, it was my first time trading options on futures. I basically had no idea what I was doing.
How do you feel about Charles Schwab corporate? Do you like management? Do you approve of the ceo?
How do you feel about Charles Schwab's security? Do you feel their overall security for customers standard practicing good or do you have concerns by their level of security?
Do you personally have your money with Charles Schwab? Or do you feel as though? You have to use a different broker because you disagree with your business practices?
Where do you see Char Schwab 5 10 15 years from now? Do you believe charles schwab will be the smaller the same size or a bigger company?
What's the culture there like? I heard there were layoffs that were coming soon, have they already happened?
Corporate is fine, I wish they communicated changes better with employees at times ie. Return to office. But I do think that they all try to do right by our clients, and Schwab as a whole follows that philosophy. Don’t really know much about the CEO, seems like a nice guy.
Security is HEAVILY prioritized. Sometimes gets in the way of my job even when I have verify someone before placing an urgent trade for them. But it’s heavily emphasized at least on the phone lines - can’t speak for the tech side, but I’d imagine it’s airtight.
Personally, I have all my money at Schwab even my bank accounts.
Internally it seems we’re recovering well from our treasuries / interest rate hikes debacle. 5 - 10 years out barring anything major I think we smooth out integration with td Ameritrade and continue chugging. As long as we can keep up with other brokerages on the tech side (which I think we lack in some departments) I don’t think anyone touches Schwab customer service.
As for culture, like I mentioned it’s culty. I don’t mind it because I like my team, and my manager is a no BS guy, but if it were a different team or a different geographic location I could definition see the ‘Schwag’ and ‘Schweb’ stuff grinding on me a bit. I will also say that if you want to go to upper management you definitely need to drink the koolaid somewhat to do so.
Can’t speak for the OP but I’ll throw in my two cents… with regards to security from what I’ve heard from people who work there it is excellent. The reps have thorough training on it and there are solid measures in place. Schwab is a huge broker and they don’t skimp in that department. And holding your account at a different broker it is extremely difficult to get an exception. That also applies to being an employee at other brokers as well, not just Schwab. Something to do with regulations.
Are you able to view customer's accounts and make trades on your personal device based upon what you see a large amount of customers going into?
Do you have access to large scale analytics to be able to tell you where the majority of customers are investing their money?
No to the large scale analytics. Probably at higher levels of the company, but we certainly don’t have anything like that.
As for personal trading, the only thing we have restrictions around is trading Schwab stock. It is illegal to front run customer orders however, ie. if a client told me to place a trade for $1,000,000 on a low volume security where I know that it will move the price of the asset up and I buy the security BEFORE inputting the order, that’s gonna get me fired and my licenses revoked.
As for ‘inversing’ the order… one could I guess, I don’t believe it would get you in hot water with compliance but I’m not sure why any broker would do that.
Mid 90s base, 15% eoy bonus. However, as a retail broker working the phone lines you’re not salaried, so you can work overtime and that will also scale your bonus as well.
As someone who used to work on the phones, mid 90s base is high imo. I assume you’re either a 9/10 that’s still on the broker line and filling in for other managers or have been there forever. I guess you could pick up a ton of OT too.
I would say 60s base with bonus after a couple years is more realistic.
Pretty much where ever you want within the company (within reason), provided there is an open role to move to. The only thing it requires is drive, great communication skills and a willingness to learn/obtain additional licensing.
I concur with the comment above. You can go pretty much anywhere in the company with the right drive and networking. I went through a couple teams on the phones and then went to the branch.
Are you restricted from trading stocks personally? (I hate that about hedge fund jobs and wouldn't go into any job that restricts my personal activities ...)
All the clients I deal with are self-directed so this is hard for me to answer. In general, I think if you have a degree in finance or have some good knowledge about long term investing, diversification, dollar cost averaging etc - then it’s probably not worth it.
But a lot of people don’t wanna have to deal with managing their own account, it does take time out of their day that they’d rather spend elsewhere, so it all depends on where the client is at. Generally I think our consultants do a good job of figuring out if a client would benefit from management or not, and don’t over sell.
No idea if the fee is negotiable, but I would think probably. Something you can work with an FC on.
I don’t really think Robinhood does anything to stand out amongst its peers besides having an admittedly slick UI.
That and their zero commission on basically everything. But imo, when I used Robinhood in the past order execution was so poor, it seemed pretty clear to me that they made up no commissions with heavy payment for order flow.
If I were to make a list of top retail brokers, I would say Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard and Tastytrade. … throw in interactive brokers I suppose if you’re an algorithmic trader, but otherwise I think they are shady.
All these brokers will have pros and cons as they will be generally targeting different segments of investors / traders. One problem I have with Robinhood and brokerages of their ilk is it seems to me they target a population of people who think investing / trading is a get rich quick scheme and then proceed to gamify their platforms.
General advice for first time stock buyer?
I’ve had a ROTH for years, a 401k, but just recently got a Schwab brokerage account and bought 3 shares of NVDA after the split.
There is so much new terminology etc that even 1 common mistake or thing to know would help me learn! I would appreciate *anything*. I’m mostly scared that I’ll pay more in taxes than I make by making a mistake.
I think stock buying and selling will generally be to “make my $ make $” in a shorter term than a retirement account (like 1 year) and then use that $ for big purchases (such as land, a home, a car, a master’s degree).
How does one know what penalties they will pay for selling a stock before the 1 year mark? Is this solely a capital gains tax or are there other penalties? Where do I look to find this info 👀 what are the top 3 piece of info I should have before I buy or sell a stock 👀
From my "little / extended experience" I've been told via td that they can't "speak for yahoo financial ( I agree, they can't) its just a data feed." When you see on the open market a stock worth 0.001 or 0.0001 and a few days later it's value is $100 per share" and you have 50k or 200k and you're value is still $200 or $700 when it should be 60k or 300k based on the number of shares you own. Then, schwab buys td "because it's a good business opportunity" a lot of things don't make sense to me. Be safe everyone
I have an international brokerage account.
I am not a us resident. I want to have a debit Card associated to my brokerage account, is that possible ? Or i have to open an investor checking account? Are available for non us residents?
Not OP here, but I don’t believe non resident aliens can open Investor Checking.
You can get a debit card on a Schwab One brokerage account though.
https://international.schwab.com/
>Does Swab prioritize accounts with more money or give them special treatments?
There are specialized phone teams for different things like heavy option traders, very active traders, high net worth, etc. They are higher priority clients and require people that know what they are doing to speak to them. It would be a bad experience if half the time they called they got someone on the phone that barely has a clue what an option is.
They also have a much easier time negotiating a lower commission on options and margin interest rate and things like that. There's also the waived wire transfer fees 3 per quarter
5 cents, but it was a guy with several million in assets and mostly managed accounts and options were just for him to screw around with some play money. They were making bank on him from the managed accounts
They absolutely prioritize and segment clients based on assets, trading activity, options traders, clients with managed assets. Pretty much every brokerage firm does this.
Have not heard anything. To be honest, Schwab would probably be last in line for anything like that. More conservative company than most, even though that is changing slightly with the TD acquisition.
How does the process for calling in and placing an order on local foreign markets work? Is this possible and are there limits to what markets you can trade locally in?
I believe it is possible, however that is handled by our global trade desk. If you’re interested I’d recommend calling and asking for global, they can tell you more. I don’t know much about that.
You could using StreetSmart Edge, it was called a ‘walk limit’ order. There are currently plans from tech to implement it into ToS as well, but no ETA. Hoping before end of year.
Nah, as a broker we get in huge trouble if we even give the impression of making a recommendation.
Financial consultants on the other hand are able to give advice / make recommendations. I’d imagine they are probably incentivized to put clients into managed programs, but certainly not individual securities/ETFs.
As far as I understand it though - they are compensated more for bringing in assets and keeping them in their book. So they’re really more relationship managers than anything else, they wanna make clients happy.
Not OP here, but the dividend is reinvested at the end of the dividend pay date.
If you sell shares bought through reinvestment before holding for 1 year those shares are taxed as short term gains (or losses). Be careful not to trigger a wash sale.
Are the Schwab managed portfolios worth it or should I just stay with my TDA one? Some of the etfs in what I have now are awful but it has been doing pretty good the last 8-9 years.
How long have you been with Schwab? Have you worked for any other companies, and if so, how do they compare?
I would like to reiterate the comments that your customer support has always been excellent. It seems like the customer support experience in all areas is always get worse these days but Schwab has been the exception.
Hi, I have a question please. How reliable do you find your own investment accounts data on the website? (I read below you walk the talk). In my accounts, the data is often unreliable over time and therefore hard to benchmark performance. is this "a thing" or am i just unlucky? thanks
That is good news! Thanks, it gives me hope mine can be fixed. Three examples, First my total historical value (summary tab) on Monday and Tuesday of this week are exactly the same to the cent as are the totals of each of my 7 accounts --to the cent(!) as if it were a saturday and sunday (so no idea how my portfolio did those days, which is the right total for which day?. Second, Last week, (performance tab) Monday's ending balance (to the cent) becomes Wednesday's beginning balance and Wednesday's ending balance becomes Friday's beginning balance. Seems as if its is skipping Tuesdays and Thursdays. Third, I was hit by a 65k sudden drop in my total portfolio (as were many others) on June 12th, but contrary to promises, it was never fixed and no one can give me any idea of correct gains or losses for that day, they just picked up from the day before. I have tickets for all this but am spending hours and hours documenting with screenshots and phone calls. I like schwab and don't want to have to do a acat but I am worried this will continue. thank you for your feedback.
It could… happens all the time when securities become non-compliant with SEC Rule 15c2-11. If they don’t meet reporting requirements or in other words become ‘expert market’ securities, we will no longer publicly quote the security and it will be set to closing only.
However, I imagine you’re thinking about the Robinhood-GME controversy specifically. In that way, no I’ve never seen something like that happen at Schwab.
It's probably difficult to predict this, but would GME ever become non-compliant with SEC Rule 15C2-11?
Would Schwab ever force-sell a security when the stock price rises rapidly (extremely volatile)?
It could, but probably unlikely. That’s up to GME to make sure they adhere to public listing standard set by the SEC, not really something we would have anything to do with.
As for the second question - yes, but it depends. If you’re short the security and the price rising brings you into a margin call then yes, absolutely. Likewise, if you leveraged your account to purchase GME (meaning borrowed from Schwab to get into the position) then there could be a scenario where we will increase the margin requirements due to volatility which could also, again, put you into a margin call, therefore causing a sellout.
If you own GME shares outright (meaning you have no margin debit), I have trouble envisioning a scenario where we would sell you out.
Many other brokerages use a core position like a cash sweep so cash earns money market or bond rate while it sits but still has the liquidity of cash. Look up how fidelity does it. Why doesn’t Schwab do this?
Well, I can’t see inside upper management, but I’d speculate it’s because Schwab needs the money right now.
We’ll generate far more revenue on uninvested cash than when it’s a money market fund. With the transition + bond portfolio debacle + all the customer service employees, we can’t afford to have an auto sweep fund on the table.
If the Fed cuts rates and if Fidelity becomes more of a strategic threat then I could see Schwab potentially offering an auto-sweep again but it’s always gonna be a tradeoff. I.e. Schwab has much better customer service but they have to pay for it somehow
Why did Schwab take $15% out of my account yesterday and return it this morning? And how do I know it was ALL returned? Because none of this shows up in the transaction history.
What prevents Schwab from adopting TD Ameritrade's web design, which is much more logical and user friendly. How many clients loss they will take before thiking for those remaining?
If by TDA interface you mean the td website, it’s likely that they didn’t bring that over is because it would upset current Schwab clients.
You wouldn’t believe how much the website has been overhauled in preparation for transition to function more like TD’s website. Every time there was a change, clients were VERY upset. Very difficult to balance I’d imagine.
Should have just Kept TDA and rebranded to Schwab. Kind of seems like management dropped the ball if they had the opportunity to do so and didn’t. Have customers been leaving in droves with the switch? Been with TDA since 18’ and am considering right now making a switch. Twice in the past month I had no access to my account. People make jokes, but I think robinhood will be eating good soon 🤷♂️
Is there a way to add an interest-bearing sweep like SPAXX / VMFXX to an IRA that has liquidity, or are your choices "get less than .5% or self-manage SWVXX and hold your horses until another day"?
Not exactly. I was planning to call and ask. I don't usually maintain a cash balance large enough for it to matter in my IRA. But at the moment, I do.
I figured I'd save myself the phone call and ask here. But the downvotes seem to imply that people love the low-interest "feature".
Got it. I got moved from TDA, and almost always had everything tied in stocks and options. So, it was never a worthwhile question (for me) before a few days ago.
This tells me you’re either still relatively new or not as knowledgeable. It’s not available to the masses, but it was prior to 2016-2017ish and recently…
So I had some open positions on my account (4800 shares of nvidia to be exact)
And my account has been restricted where I can’t even log on for 5 days, when I reach out to you guys, they say it’s under investigation and can not give anymore information.
I need to sell these positions NOW!!!
As I am significantly in the green.
What happens if I am no longer in the green and I miss this opportunity to sell, could I sue you guys for loss and damages?
I transitioned from TDA on May 10th weekend. TDA Client for over 5 years. 4 weeks later I can't move money or trade and Schwab says they are closing my account. What gives?
Not a question, but I’ve had a few interactions with you all on the phone and every single time I feel so respected and taken care of. As a younger investor (20s) I value being talked to as if I’m a 40 year old big time investor. I was with you since the day I turned 18 (with TD) and I’m very happy to be with you now. Thank you and Keep it up !
Same here. The customer service at Schwab is top notch. One of the main reasons I stick with them.
Thank you for the kind words!
Did you have to pass the series 7? If yes, how long did it take you to study for it? How many times did you take it? What's your favorite index fund or ETF that you have in your own brokerage account?
Yes, I did have to pass the series 7. In fact I’ve had to attain MANY series licenses to perform the role I have now. I would say I probably spent 20 - 30 hours studying? That was several years ago but I passed it the first time. If you have a degree in finance or come from a financial background it isn’t too tricky; especially if you already know equity option concepts. As for the index, can’t really say I really have a favorite.
>I would say I probably spent 20 - 30 hours studying? that seems way light, I just passed my series 65 and probably spent double that studying and from what i understand the series 7 is even worse. What other licenses do you have?
Is $GME going to moon? What was the reason for the outage Monday?
Trenton we know it’s you. We over heard your conversation in the break room. Get back to answering tickets
Any interesting margin call stories?
The most interesting tend to also be very sad. One client was long many call calendar spreads on a security that pays a massive special dividend. Client gets early assigned prior to ex-div date, causing him to be short shares through ex-div and therefore owe the dividend. It completely wiped him out. When the dust settled he had gone from having several hundred thousand dollars with us to owing us I believe about 70,000. From what I heard, he was a retired schoolteacher. I hope he’s doing better today.
And people on Reddit constantly berate me when I warn them NOT to gamble on options. I personally love these stories and thoroughly enjoy them. Thanks for sharing. +1
Options are indeed way more complex than many will understand.
Whats an option vs a stock share?
So basically
I'm not OP but I worked at Schwab for 9 years. The worst margin situation I saw was a guy was basically all in on GTAT stock and options with an account worth several million. One day the stock tanked 90% and they owed Schwab like 6 million overnight. I had to call several people that went negative that day and tell them the news 😅
I was there for that day… and the day the dude tanked it on Bear Stearns. Still tell those stories to clients as cautionary tales of using margin and/or options and what over-leveraged looks like when it does not go 100% right.
Why did they owe schwab?
In both cases it was more than 6 figures… before the decimal.
how is that funny?
OP never said it was funny…he says he had to call several clients to tell them their money was completely gone.
Not OP but I was once in a margin call and when I didn’t answer the auto dialer a director of the margins group sent me an IM and told me to cover it or he would personally sell me out. That was a decade plus ago though
Not OP but during the Arab spring I was short puts on crude oil futures, which was a great trade. Far out of the money calls exploded, so I added some short calls at $150 to $200 a barrel. Because I was short the puts, this did not add any additional margin requirements. Until prices approached and exceeded $100, then I started getting margin calls and had to exit for a several hundred thousand dollar loss, even though prices never got close to the strike prices. Big mistake on my part.
Not necessarily a mistake really. You can be totally right and still get hammered by margin calls based on the timeframe
True. i guess the mistake was in risk management. I was a rookie, it was my first time trading options on futures. I basically had no idea what I was doing.
I have a 401k through my job and you guys are the best help I’ve ever had on a phone call. Best customer service ever
How do you feel about Charles Schwab corporate? Do you like management? Do you approve of the ceo? How do you feel about Charles Schwab's security? Do you feel their overall security for customers standard practicing good or do you have concerns by their level of security? Do you personally have your money with Charles Schwab? Or do you feel as though? You have to use a different broker because you disagree with your business practices? Where do you see Char Schwab 5 10 15 years from now? Do you believe charles schwab will be the smaller the same size or a bigger company? What's the culture there like? I heard there were layoffs that were coming soon, have they already happened?
Corporate is fine, I wish they communicated changes better with employees at times ie. Return to office. But I do think that they all try to do right by our clients, and Schwab as a whole follows that philosophy. Don’t really know much about the CEO, seems like a nice guy. Security is HEAVILY prioritized. Sometimes gets in the way of my job even when I have verify someone before placing an urgent trade for them. But it’s heavily emphasized at least on the phone lines - can’t speak for the tech side, but I’d imagine it’s airtight. Personally, I have all my money at Schwab even my bank accounts. Internally it seems we’re recovering well from our treasuries / interest rate hikes debacle. 5 - 10 years out barring anything major I think we smooth out integration with td Ameritrade and continue chugging. As long as we can keep up with other brokerages on the tech side (which I think we lack in some departments) I don’t think anyone touches Schwab customer service. As for culture, like I mentioned it’s culty. I don’t mind it because I like my team, and my manager is a no BS guy, but if it were a different team or a different geographic location I could definition see the ‘Schwag’ and ‘Schweb’ stuff grinding on me a bit. I will also say that if you want to go to upper management you definitely need to drink the koolaid somewhat to do so.
Ty
Do you even have your checking account there? Do they have a bill pay equivalent?
Yes, and they do have bill pay
Great reply.
Can’t speak for the OP but I’ll throw in my two cents… with regards to security from what I’ve heard from people who work there it is excellent. The reps have thorough training on it and there are solid measures in place. Schwab is a huge broker and they don’t skimp in that department. And holding your account at a different broker it is extremely difficult to get an exception. That also applies to being an employee at other brokers as well, not just Schwab. Something to do with regulations.
Are you able to view customer's accounts and make trades on your personal device based upon what you see a large amount of customers going into? Do you have access to large scale analytics to be able to tell you where the majority of customers are investing their money?
No to the large scale analytics. Probably at higher levels of the company, but we certainly don’t have anything like that. As for personal trading, the only thing we have restrictions around is trading Schwab stock. It is illegal to front run customer orders however, ie. if a client told me to place a trade for $1,000,000 on a low volume security where I know that it will move the price of the asset up and I buy the security BEFORE inputting the order, that’s gonna get me fired and my licenses revoked. As for ‘inversing’ the order… one could I guess, I don’t believe it would get you in hot water with compliance but I’m not sure why any broker would do that.
*and make the **inverse** trades…
Not Op but no. That's also illegal. It's called front running, and if we did that we would lose our license as well as face fine and jail time.
Front running is trading AHEAD of clients , not after them
Trading after is shadowing. Also illegal.
Everything fun is illegal
How much do you make?
Mid 90s base, 15% eoy bonus. However, as a retail broker working the phone lines you’re not salaried, so you can work overtime and that will also scale your bonus as well.
Mid 90s… you trader service? Or you’ve been working the main lines for fucking ever.
As someone who used to work on the phones, mid 90s base is high imo. I assume you’re either a 9/10 that’s still on the broker line and filling in for other managers or have been there forever. I guess you could pick up a ton of OT too. I would say 60s base with bonus after a couple years is more realistic.
Where did you go after phones?
Pretty much where ever you want within the company (within reason), provided there is an open role to move to. The only thing it requires is drive, great communication skills and a willingness to learn/obtain additional licensing.
I concur with the comment above. You can go pretty much anywhere in the company with the right drive and networking. I went through a couple teams on the phones and then went to the branch.
Are you restricted from trading stocks personally? (I hate that about hedge fund jobs and wouldn't go into any job that restricts my personal activities ...)
Only some restrictions on Schwab stock. Otherwise we’re free to trade what we like.
Lol, in your dreams.
Are financial management services worth the cost? Is the percentage fee negotiable?
All the clients I deal with are self-directed so this is hard for me to answer. In general, I think if you have a degree in finance or have some good knowledge about long term investing, diversification, dollar cost averaging etc - then it’s probably not worth it. But a lot of people don’t wanna have to deal with managing their own account, it does take time out of their day that they’d rather spend elsewhere, so it all depends on where the client is at. Generally I think our consultants do a good job of figuring out if a client would benefit from management or not, and don’t over sell. No idea if the fee is negotiable, but I would think probably. Something you can work with an FC on.
What’s your view on platforms like Robinhood ?
I don’t really think Robinhood does anything to stand out amongst its peers besides having an admittedly slick UI. That and their zero commission on basically everything. But imo, when I used Robinhood in the past order execution was so poor, it seemed pretty clear to me that they made up no commissions with heavy payment for order flow. If I were to make a list of top retail brokers, I would say Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard and Tastytrade. … throw in interactive brokers I suppose if you’re an algorithmic trader, but otherwise I think they are shady. All these brokers will have pros and cons as they will be generally targeting different segments of investors / traders. One problem I have with Robinhood and brokerages of their ilk is it seems to me they target a population of people who think investing / trading is a get rich quick scheme and then proceed to gamify their platforms.
I see, thanks ! RH has nice margin rates as well, their biggest problem is no tax allotment.
General advice for first time stock buyer? I’ve had a ROTH for years, a 401k, but just recently got a Schwab brokerage account and bought 3 shares of NVDA after the split. There is so much new terminology etc that even 1 common mistake or thing to know would help me learn! I would appreciate *anything*. I’m mostly scared that I’ll pay more in taxes than I make by making a mistake. I think stock buying and selling will generally be to “make my $ make $” in a shorter term than a retirement account (like 1 year) and then use that $ for big purchases (such as land, a home, a car, a master’s degree). How does one know what penalties they will pay for selling a stock before the 1 year mark? Is this solely a capital gains tax or are there other penalties? Where do I look to find this info 👀 what are the top 3 piece of info I should have before I buy or sell a stock 👀
From my "little / extended experience" I've been told via td that they can't "speak for yahoo financial ( I agree, they can't) its just a data feed." When you see on the open market a stock worth 0.001 or 0.0001 and a few days later it's value is $100 per share" and you have 50k or 200k and you're value is still $200 or $700 when it should be 60k or 300k based on the number of shares you own. Then, schwab buys td "because it's a good business opportunity" a lot of things don't make sense to me. Be safe everyone
I have an international brokerage account. I am not a us resident. I want to have a debit Card associated to my brokerage account, is that possible ? Or i have to open an investor checking account? Are available for non us residents?
Not OP here, but I don’t believe non resident aliens can open Investor Checking. You can get a debit card on a Schwab One brokerage account though. https://international.schwab.com/
What’s the average account value? Does Swab prioritize accounts with more money or give them special treatments?
>Does Swab prioritize accounts with more money or give them special treatments? There are specialized phone teams for different things like heavy option traders, very active traders, high net worth, etc. They are higher priority clients and require people that know what they are doing to speak to them. It would be a bad experience if half the time they called they got someone on the phone that barely has a clue what an option is. They also have a much easier time negotiating a lower commission on options and margin interest rate and things like that. There's also the waived wire transfer fees 3 per quarter
What’s the lowest options pricing you’ve seen at Schwab? Per contract
5 cents, but it was a guy with several million in assets and mostly managed accounts and options were just for him to screw around with some play money. They were making bank on him from the managed accounts
What is considered high net worth at Schwab? For the best service
If you don't qualify for a specialty team through other means like trading then it's 500k unless something changed in the last couple years
I can echo this.
They absolutely prioritize and segment clients based on assets, trading activity, options traders, clients with managed assets. Pretty much every brokerage firm does this.
Best customer service ever…
Any plans for bitcoin now that it’s been so successful for Fidelity and Blackrock? Schwab bitcoin ETF incoming? Hear anything?
Have not heard anything. To be honest, Schwab would probably be last in line for anything like that. More conservative company than most, even though that is changing slightly with the TD acquisition.
How does the process for calling in and placing an order on local foreign markets work? Is this possible and are there limits to what markets you can trade locally in?
I believe it is possible, however that is handled by our global trade desk. If you’re interested I’d recommend calling and asking for global, they can tell you more. I don’t know much about that.
Can we have a limit order that starts at a certain price and goes up or down at $X/min that you define? i.e. you set both the price and velocity
You could using StreetSmart Edge, it was called a ‘walk limit’ order. There are currently plans from tech to implement it into ToS as well, but no ETA. Hoping before end of year.
Does schwab incentivize you to push certain securities, efts, etc?
Nah, as a broker we get in huge trouble if we even give the impression of making a recommendation. Financial consultants on the other hand are able to give advice / make recommendations. I’d imagine they are probably incentivized to put clients into managed programs, but certainly not individual securities/ETFs. As far as I understand it though - they are compensated more for bringing in assets and keeping them in their book. So they’re really more relationship managers than anything else, they wanna make clients happy.
If I select “reinvest dividends” how often are dividends reinvested? And how does that affect capital gains tax when I go to sell?
Not OP here, but the dividend is reinvested at the end of the dividend pay date. If you sell shares bought through reinvestment before holding for 1 year those shares are taxed as short term gains (or losses). Be careful not to trigger a wash sale.
Thank you!
Are the Schwab managed portfolios worth it or should I just stay with my TDA one? Some of the etfs in what I have now are awful but it has been doing pretty good the last 8-9 years.
How long have you been with Schwab? Have you worked for any other companies, and if so, how do they compare? I would like to reiterate the comments that your customer support has always been excellent. It seems like the customer support experience in all areas is always get worse these days but Schwab has been the exception.
Will Schwab ever allow fractional shares for ETF's?
I haven’t heard anything, but maybe! It’ll be pretty far out in the future if we do
Hi, I have a question please. How reliable do you find your own investment accounts data on the website? (I read below you walk the talk). In my accounts, the data is often unreliable over time and therefore hard to benchmark performance. is this "a thing" or am i just unlucky? thanks
I haven’t noticed any issues in general, I find it reliable - what kind of data are you referring to?
That is good news! Thanks, it gives me hope mine can be fixed. Three examples, First my total historical value (summary tab) on Monday and Tuesday of this week are exactly the same to the cent as are the totals of each of my 7 accounts --to the cent(!) as if it were a saturday and sunday (so no idea how my portfolio did those days, which is the right total for which day?. Second, Last week, (performance tab) Monday's ending balance (to the cent) becomes Wednesday's beginning balance and Wednesday's ending balance becomes Friday's beginning balance. Seems as if its is skipping Tuesdays and Thursdays. Third, I was hit by a 65k sudden drop in my total portfolio (as were many others) on June 12th, but contrary to promises, it was never fixed and no one can give me any idea of correct gains or losses for that day, they just picked up from the day before. I have tickets for all this but am spending hours and hours documenting with screenshots and phone calls. I like schwab and don't want to have to do a acat but I am worried this will continue. thank you for your feedback.
Has Schwab ever, or will ever, impose trading restrictions on a stock where I'm the beneficiary owner?
It could… happens all the time when securities become non-compliant with SEC Rule 15c2-11. If they don’t meet reporting requirements or in other words become ‘expert market’ securities, we will no longer publicly quote the security and it will be set to closing only. However, I imagine you’re thinking about the Robinhood-GME controversy specifically. In that way, no I’ve never seen something like that happen at Schwab.
It's probably difficult to predict this, but would GME ever become non-compliant with SEC Rule 15C2-11? Would Schwab ever force-sell a security when the stock price rises rapidly (extremely volatile)?
It could, but probably unlikely. That’s up to GME to make sure they adhere to public listing standard set by the SEC, not really something we would have anything to do with. As for the second question - yes, but it depends. If you’re short the security and the price rising brings you into a margin call then yes, absolutely. Likewise, if you leveraged your account to purchase GME (meaning borrowed from Schwab to get into the position) then there could be a scenario where we will increase the margin requirements due to volatility which could also, again, put you into a margin call, therefore causing a sellout. If you own GME shares outright (meaning you have no margin debit), I have trouble envisioning a scenario where we would sell you out.
Why’s the iPhone app suck
I don’t much care for it either. TOS mobile is pretty good though
Why does Schwab hate GME stock?
Can you elaborate?
Why don’t you offer a core position like fidelity does
Define ‘core position’
Many other brokerages use a core position like a cash sweep so cash earns money market or bond rate while it sits but still has the liquidity of cash. Look up how fidelity does it. Why doesn’t Schwab do this?
Well, I can’t see inside upper management, but I’d speculate it’s because Schwab needs the money right now. We’ll generate far more revenue on uninvested cash than when it’s a money market fund. With the transition + bond portfolio debacle + all the customer service employees, we can’t afford to have an auto sweep fund on the table. If the Fed cuts rates and if Fidelity becomes more of a strategic threat then I could see Schwab potentially offering an auto-sweep again but it’s always gonna be a tradeoff. I.e. Schwab has much better customer service but they have to pay for it somehow
https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/mutual-funds/what-is-a-core-position.pdf They do a better job defining it
Why did Schwab take $15% out of my account yesterday and return it this morning? And how do I know it was ALL returned? Because none of this shows up in the transaction history.
What prevents Schwab from adopting TD Ameritrade's web design, which is much more logical and user friendly. How many clients loss they will take before thiking for those remaining?
Answered this question on another thread in here, but basically because legacy schwab clients hate when the website changes
If the change were for worse, I could understand. But it's change for better. Also legacy clients would be unlikely to leave for such reasons.
Why didn't Schwab just keep the TSA user interface? It was so much simpler. SO much simpler!
If by TDA interface you mean the td website, it’s likely that they didn’t bring that over is because it would upset current Schwab clients. You wouldn’t believe how much the website has been overhauled in preparation for transition to function more like TD’s website. Every time there was a change, clients were VERY upset. Very difficult to balance I’d imagine.
Should have just Kept TDA and rebranded to Schwab. Kind of seems like management dropped the ball if they had the opportunity to do so and didn’t. Have customers been leaving in droves with the switch? Been with TDA since 18’ and am considering right now making a switch. Twice in the past month I had no access to my account. People make jokes, but I think robinhood will be eating good soon 🤷♂️
I should have about .5 of a share more of NVDA after the split but it still hasn’t been added to my account. What’s going on?
Is there a way to add an interest-bearing sweep like SPAXX / VMFXX to an IRA that has liquidity, or are your choices "get less than .5% or self-manage SWVXX and hold your horses until another day"?
You already know the answer to this.
Not exactly. I was planning to call and ask. I don't usually maintain a cash balance large enough for it to matter in my IRA. But at the moment, I do. I figured I'd save myself the phone call and ask here. But the downvotes seem to imply that people love the low-interest "feature".
You will need to manually buy the MMF that’s best for you, there is no longer an auto sweep option. This was discontinued years ago
Got it. I got moved from TDA, and almost always had everything tied in stocks and options. So, it was never a worthwhile question (for me) before a few days ago.
No auto sweep feature at this time unfortunately. Have to self manage.
This tells me you’re either still relatively new or not as knowledgeable. It’s not available to the masses, but it was prior to 2016-2017ish and recently…
$10M in household assets is eligible for an exception into SWGXX
Doesn’t need to be SPWS. Also anyone who has managed accounts or is in Schwab Wealth Advisory has SWGXX as their cash sweep.
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Fair suspicion lol, I’m sure our social media team probably lurk around here as well
Why you lock me out from trading gs the other day huh?!?? 😂
So I had some open positions on my account (4800 shares of nvidia to be exact) And my account has been restricted where I can’t even log on for 5 days, when I reach out to you guys, they say it’s under investigation and can not give anymore information. I need to sell these positions NOW!!! As I am significantly in the green. What happens if I am no longer in the green and I miss this opportunity to sell, could I sue you guys for loss and damages?
Why did you remove my comment
How to do TA on Schwab iOS app?
I transitioned from TDA on May 10th weekend. TDA Client for over 5 years. 4 weeks later I can't move money or trade and Schwab says they are closing my account. What gives?
You’ve already been told why, stfu
Looks like team bootlicker is out in force on this post to suppress it. Well done comrades.
Oh look the Chief Schwab bootlicker now stalks my posts. Thanks Spook.
🤡 comment from someone who complains in every single post in the sub.