Charles Schwab Stock Price Forecast - SCHW at $92: Margin Rebuild and Buybacks Signal Re-Rating

Charles Schwab Stock Price Forecast - SCHW at $92: Margin Rebuild and Buybacks Signal Re-Rating

NYSE:SCHW controls $11.9T in client assets, runs a 2.9% net interest margin and returned $11.8B in 2025, yet still trades around 16x forward earnings | That's TradingNEWS

TradingNEWS Archive 2/20/2026 12:24:34 PM
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Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – scale, margin rebuild and buybacks driving a re-rating case

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – price, range and what the tape is saying now

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) real-time chart shows the shares trading around $92.89 intraday, down about 1.0% from a previous close at $93.87. The day range sits between $92.73 and $93.65, inside a 52-week corridor of $65.88 to $107.50, putting market capitalization near $166–167 billion. The stock trades roughly 12.2 million shares on an average day, and the current trailing P/E multiple is about 19.9x with a dividend yield around 1.3–1.4% against management’s 2026 payout path. On forward numbers, consensus has forward P/E around 16x, tied to revenue growth near 22% year-over-year and short interest below 1% (≈0.87%), which confirms the market is not treating The Charles Schwab Corporation as a stress name anymore but as a core financial compounder that is still not fully re-rated.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – earnings power, net interest margin and balance sheet reset

The key to Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) today is the earnings engine built on interest spreads and operating leverage. For full-year 2025, Schwab generated 19–22% revenue growth and pushed net income up about 34% year-over-year to $2.46 billion in Q4 alone, with non-GAAP profit at $2.56 billion. Platform margins are where the franchise flexes its scale: management reports GAAP platform margin at 50.2% and non-GAAP at 52.2%, levels you typically see only in the most efficient asset-gathering businesses. The net interest story has moved from “problem” back to “engine”. After being forced into almost $50 billion of high-cost supplemental funding during the rate shock and regional-bank panic in Q4 2024, Schwab has ground that down to roughly $5 billion by Q4 2025, using organic cash flow and security run-off instead of dumping bonds at a loss. That funding normalization alone pushed net interest margin in Q4 2025 up to about 2.90%, a 57-basis-point expansion year-over-year. On a full-year basis, Schwab printed 2.74% NIM in 2025 and now guides 2.85%–2.95% for 2026, which is not only above 2025 realized levels but implicitly assumes the balance sheet drag from legacy funding is largely behind the company. Net interest revenue, which sits near $3.2 billion for the latest quarter and represents roughly half of total revenues, grew around 25% year-over-year, while fee engines are also scaling. Asset-management revenues reached $1.7 billion, up 15% year-over-year, and trading revenue is about $1.1 billion, rising 22% as volatility and equity-market highs push more activity through the platform. With that mix, Schwab is no longer just a rate-beneficiary story; it is a fully diversified broker–bank with multiple high-margin levers.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – $11.9–12 trillion in client assets and a growing account base

Scale is the franchise. At the end of Q4 2025, Schwab reported about $11.9–12.0 trillion in total client assets, up roughly 18% year-over-year, driven by both market tailwinds and consistent net inflows. The firm attracted a record $519 billion in core net new assets during 2025, translating into around 5.1% organic asset growth, which matches the mid-single-digit net-new-asset engine that has powered Schwab’s story for decades. In Q4 2025 alone, core net new assets hit $163.9 billion, up 43% versus the prior year’s quarter, giving clear visibility into future fee and interest income from a much larger base. On the client-count side, active brokerage accounts climbed to about 36.5 million, up 6% year-on-year, and Schwab opened more than 1 million new accounts in each of the last five consecutive quarters. Total client relationships across the franchise are approaching 40 million accounts. That scale means incremental assets and accounts drop into an existing infrastructure with relatively fixed costs, which is exactly why incremental margins are so high when client assets and interest spreads move together.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – TD Ameritrade integration, platform momentum and what it means for flows

The integration of TD Ameritrade was the largest account conversion in the industry and temporarily dented net-new-asset optics. During the heavy conversion phases, combined business growth dipped below the historic 5–7% net-new-asset range as legacy TD clients paused and evaluated the merged platform, while Schwab’s own legacy clients kept growing in line with past patterns. Management now reports that drag fading. Legacy TD clients are beginning to recognize the consolidated offer and returning to more normal contribution levels, which is visible in the $519 billion of core net new assets and the acceleration to $163.9 billion in Q4 2025. With total client assets at $11.9 trillion and the underlying flow engine normalizing, Schwab is re-entering its usual flywheel mode: better scale and economics allow more investment into product, technology and pricing, which improves the client proposition and drives further flows. For a broker-bank whose business model monetizes client cash, trading and advisory, the integration has moved from risk to realized synergy, and the earnings numbers confirm it.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – private markets, Forge Global deal and structural revenue mix shift

A key strategic move is the agreement to acquire Forge Global, a private-market platform, expected to close in the first half of 2026. Adding a “premier” private-asset marketplace on top of Schwab’s public-market distribution puts the firm in a stronger position to capture fee pools that have been shifting from public to private assets over the last decade. Schwab already manages nearly $1.5 trillion in proprietary mutual funds and ETFs; attaching private-market access allows the firm to deepen relationships with higher-net-worth and advisor-led clients and adds new fee streams that are less tied to short-term trading volumes. Management expects the acquisition to broaden the platform appeal and support continued organic asset growth on top of the 5.1% organic rate already achieved. Over time, the revenue mix is likely to tilt more toward fee-based and advisory streams. Asset-management revenue already accounts for around 27% of total revenue, and it is reasonable to expect this share to push through 30% over the medium term, even if the macro rate environment softens. That slowly reduces dependence on short-term rate levels while preserving the upside from a still-elevated NIM.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – capital strength, buybacks and dividend growth capacity

On capital and shareholder returns, Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) is already acting like a mature, cash-generative compounder. The firm holds an A- credit rating from S&P with a stable outlook and a Tier 1 leverage ratio around 9.3% at Q4 2025, well above the 6% regulatory minimum, which gives ample room to return capital and still withstand stress. In 2025, Schwab returned about $11.8 billion to shareholders, of which roughly $7.3 billion came via share repurchases and the rest via dividends. In Q4 alone, buybacks totalled approximately $2.7 billion, and the share count has fallen by around 5% over the last five years, with the pace now clearly accelerating. The dividend yield near 1.3–1.4% looks low at first glance, but the payout ratio is only in the low-20% range on expected 2026 earnings, leaving vast headroom for dividend growth and further buybacks. The most recent regular dividend increase was about 18.5%, which, combined with earnings growth, puts the “Chowder-style” growth-plus-yield number close to 20. With earnings compounding and shares still below estimated fair value, every incremental dollar deployed into repurchases at $90–$95 boosts per-share earnings and increases the leverage of future cycles. For monitoring insiders and governance alignment, the Schwab insider transactions and stock profile page is worth tracking; stable or increasing insider ownership would reinforce the long-term alignment with outside holders.

 

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – earnings trajectory, Street expectations and long-term return math

Sell-side consensus expects adjusted diluted EPS to compound around 16.9% annually through 2028, off a 2025 base near $4.87. Another set of long-term estimates has Schwab delivering about 21.4% annual EPS growth versus approximately 15.2% for Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. and roughly 11.0% for Morgan Stanley, even though Schwab trades at a substantially lower multiple than the more expensive peers. If the firm hits those growth paths, various frameworks suggest total returns that are hard to ignore. One GARP-style analysis assumes a fair value multiple around 22x on mid-teens EPS growth, which at today’s earnings power implies roughly $129 per share, or about 35–39% upside from the $92–93 area, excluding dividends. Another valuation approach, using a 20x forward P/E on a 2027 EPS estimate of $6.85, yields a fair value near $137, or roughly 34% upside on a slightly longer horizon. On top of that, some projections describe potential annual total returns in the low-20% range (≈23% per year) through 2031, blending mid-teens EPS growth, modest multiple expansion, and a rising dividend layer. These are not blue-sky numbers; they are consistent with the combination of asset growth, NIM normalization, buybacks and fee scaling already visible in the reported results.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – macro tailwinds and where the cycle helps the story

The macro setup currently supports the Schwab case more than it hurts it. Recent US economic prints show Q3 GDP revised to about 4.4% annualized, with inflation around 2.7% in December, a combination that indicates solid real growth with inflation not completely under control but trending closer to central-bank comfort. Equity markets reflect that backdrop: the S&P 500 trades around record territory near 6,900–6,915 on the relevant futures and cash indices, and commentary around a further up to 20% upside in 2026 is now mainstream as AI capex cycles and mega-cap tech earnings continue to surprise on the upside. For Schwab, a strong market means higher client asset values, more trading, and higher fees on advised and managed portfolios. High but stable short-term rates sustain the 2.85–2.95% NIM guidance, and more assets sitting in cash sweeps and margin balances reinforce net interest income. In other words, the current “higher-for-longer light” environment is close to optimal for the Schwab model: reasonably high rates, rising equity markets and solid risk appetite.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – risk profile, where the thesis can break and what to monitor

There are real risks that need to be priced. The first is rate sensitivity in the opposite direction: if the Fed is forced into a rapid cutting cycle, net interest margin could compress faster than asset growth can offset, especially if clients aggressively move cash out of sweep programs into higher-yield alternatives or away from the platform. The second is activity risk: a period of very low realized volatility and compressed trading ranges would weigh on the $1.1 billion trading revenue line that just grew 22% year-over-year. The third is flows. Schwab’s model depends on steady 5–7% net-new-asset growth; a sharp slowdown in core net new assets, especially from the $163.9 billion quarterly run rate recently achieved, would eventually flatten the revenue curve regardless of where rates sit. Cybersecurity is a separate, non-trivial tail risk. At $11.9–12.0 trillion in client assets and nearly 40 million accounts, Schwab is a top-tier target for sophisticated attacks. A major breach bringing regulatory fines, litigation, and reputational damage would be thesis-changing. Finally, competition is intense. Zero-commission pricing has commoditized simple trading, and rivals are competing on 24-hour trading windows, high-yield cash products and sleek front-ends. That can push Schwab to spend more on technology and marketing to keep its affluent client base, which could cap incremental margin if not managed carefully. The partial offset is that Schwab’s cost of capital is low, its A- credit rating is intact, and its Tier 1 leverage buffer at 9.3% vs 6% minimum gives room to keep investing while still returning capital.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – relative valuation versus other broker–banks

On current pricing near $92–93Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) trades at about 14.9x 2027 earnings on some long-term models and roughly 16x nearer-term forward EPS, versus a 10-year average P/E near 23.8x that was inflated by the zero-rate and COVID period. Even if you haircut that historic multiple and assume fair value in the 20x–22x range, there is still clear multiple-re-rating space if the company simply delivers its current growth path. By comparison, Interactive Brokers trades closer to 28.4x forward earnings with slower expected EPS growth, while Morgan Stanley sits around 14.7x, but with lower 11% EPS CAGR expectations and a very different capital-intensive investment-bank and wealth-management mix. On those numbers, Schwab offers the best combination of growth and price inside this mini-peer group. Quantitative models tagging it as a “Hold” with a score around 3.4, while Wall Street and fundamental analysts sit in the “Buy” zone with scores above 4.2–4.3, look more like a lag in factor models than a structural red flag. At today’s price, you are paying a modest premium to the broad market for a business compounding assets and earnings materially faster than the average financial name, while still being paid via buybacks and dividends.

Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) – verdict and positioning: this is a Buy, with rate-path risk worth taking

Putting the numbers together, Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) at roughly $92.89 with a 52-week band of $65.88–$107.50market cap around $166 billiontrailing P/E ~19.9x and forward P/E near 16x prices in neither the growth nor the capital-return profile now visible in the reported results. The firm is running net interest margin at 2.9% with guidance toward 2.85–2.95% in 2026, has effectively retired ~$45 billion of high-cost funding in a year, is compounding EPS in the mid-teens to low-20s, controls almost $12 trillion in client assets, and is retiring stock aggressively with $11.8 billion of capital returns in 2025, including $7.3 billion in buybacks. On conservative fair-value estimates between $129 and $137 per share, the upside from current levels is roughly 34–40% over a 2–3 year horizon, before dividends. The main macro risk is an aggressive rate-cutting cycle that compresses NIM faster than flows and fees can offset, and the main idiosyncratic risk is a cyber or reputational event. Given the scale, capital position and demonstrated ability to manage through the 2022–2023 rate shock and the regional-bank panic without permanent damage, those risks are acceptable for an investor seeking a compounder in the broker–bank space. On that basis, the stance on Charles Schwab Stock (NYSE:SCHW) at current levels is Buy, with any pullbacks into the high-$80s seen as attractive entry or add zones, and upside skewed toward a re-rating into the low-$100s and, on successful execution, into the $130+ fair-value range over the medium term.

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