Schwab Sees Profits of $162-$171 Million
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - No. 1 U.S. online broker Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE:SCH - news) said on Wednesday it expects fourth-quarter profits to exceed Wall Street expectations, coming in at $162-$171 million, or $0.19-$0.20 a share, on the back of robust stock trading volumes.
Revenues should hit a record $1.1 billion in the quarter, the San Francisco-based company said.
Charles Schwab stock closed at 33-15/16 on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
``After a very active November, December is shaping up to be our busiest month ever, with customer daily average revenue trades of 236,000 through the 27th,' Schwab President and Co-Chief Executive David Pottruck said in a statement. ``These trading volumes have helped put the company on track to achieve record revenues of more than $1 billion for the fourth quarter and achieve record profits as well.'
In last year's fourth quarter, Schwab booked $106 million in profit, or $0.12 a share, on $789 million in revenues. This quarter, analysts had expected the discount and online broker to earn $0.17 a share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks analysts' estimates.
Earlier in the month, Schwab said its average daily trades in November nearly matched a record set last April.
The broker, a beneficiary of investors' unbridled enthusiasm for online stock trading and ever-surging stock prices, processed an average of 202,900 trades per day in November, compared to 207,700 a day in April.
For the full year, Schwab estimates it will earn $580-$589 million, or $0.69-$0.70 a share, on revenues of $3.9 billion. Last year, it earned $348 million or $0.42 a share, with $2.7 billion in revenues.
In addition, its customer assets hit $700 billion at the end of last week, and customers opened about 6,400 new accounts a day in December, it said. |
