The Charles Schwab Corp.’s SCHW third-quarter 2015 adjusted earnings of 27 cents per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.8%. Moreover, the bottom line was up 3% year over year.
Schwab’s shares jumped nearly 1.6% in the early market trading, which depicts investors’ optimism regarding continued improvement in top line. Notably, price reaction during the full trading session will provide a better idea about how investors accepted the results.
Revenue growth, primarily driven by increased equity market volatility, acted as a tailwind. Further, lower expenses supported the bottom-line improvement. Also, an increase in total client assets and new brokerage accounts was impressive. However, a drastic rise in provision for loan losses was an undermining factor.
Results excluded net tax benefits of approximately $14 million or 1 cent per share. After considering this, net income available to common shareholders totaled $365 million, up 17% year over year.
Performance in Detail
Net revenue was $1,597 million, up 3% year over year. The rise was largely attributable to asset management and administration fees (up 2%), net interest revenue (up 11%) and trading income (up 9%). However, lower other revenues (down 45%) partially hampered revenue growth. The reported figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,585 million.
Total non-interest expense fell 2% year over year to $1,014 million. All expense components, except communications, depreciation and amortization, and other cost, declined on a year-over-year basis.
However, provision for loan losses was $5 million, up significantly from $1 million recorded in the year-ago quarter.
Pre-tax profit margin improved to 36.5% from 33.4% recorded a year ago.
As of Sep 30, 2015, Schwab’s average interest-earning assets rose nearly 4% year over year to $160.3 billion.
Annualized return on equity (“ROE”) as of Sep 30, 2015, came in at 13%, up from 12% recorded a year ago.
Other Business Developments
As of Sep 30, 2015, Schwab had total client assets of $2.42 trillion (up 1% year over year). Net new assets – bought by new and existing clients – were $30.8 billion during the quarter.
Also, Schwab added 254,000 new brokerage accounts in the third quarter. As of Sep 30, 2015, the company had a total of 9.7 million active brokerage accounts, 1.0 million banking accounts and 1.5 million corporate retirement plan participants.
Our Take
While focus on low-cost capital structure will improve Schwab’s performance in the quarters ahead, we believe the company’s financials will likely remain under pressure owing to a low interest rate environment.
However, the company has undertaken several initiatives to reduce its dependency on interest rates. Further, we believe that a stable capital position will boost its financials to some extent.
Currently, Schwab has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Among other investment brokers, Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. IBKR will release results on Oct 20; while Raymond James Financial, Inc. RJF is slated to report on Oct 21 and E*TRADE Financial Corp. ETFC will report on Oct 22.
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