-- Charles Schwab's (SCHW) first-quarter results rose year over year amid a surge in client assets, even as revenue fell short of Wall Street's estimates.
Per-share adjusted earnings rose to $1.43 for the March quarter from $1.04 a year earlier and surpassed the FactSet-polled consensus of $1.40. Revenue climbed 16% to $6.48 billion, while analysts expected $6.50 billion.
The financial services provider's stock was down 4.8% intraday, and has fallen 4.5% since the start of the year.
"Client cash followed typical seasonal trends to begin the year," Chief Financial Officer Mike Verdeschi said during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript. "However, as volatility increased during the back half of the quarter, clients took a slightly more defensive posture."
Client assets soared 19% annually to $11.768 trillion, with the company adding 1.3 million new brokerage accounts during the March quarter. That helped grow active brokerage accounts by 6% to 39.1 million.
"Clients continue to turn to us for more of their financial lives, helping wealth and banking solutions reach record levels in (the first quarter," Chief Executive Rick Wurster said in a statement.
Net new assets surged to $139.9 billion from $132.4 billion a year earlier.
Net interest revenue jumped 16% to $3.14 billion. Asset management and administration fees increased 15% to $1.76 billion, while trading revenue grew 20%, the company said.
Charles Schwab is tracking higher than the $5.70 to $5.80 EPS range implied by the scenario outlined in January, Verdeschi told analysts.
"For the second quarter, we still anticipate the typical drawdown in client cash due to tax payments in April. And, similar to past years, we expect this activity to impact both transactional sweep cash, as well as other liquid cash alternatives, such as money market funds," Verdeschi said. "Beyond seasonal considerations, continued market volatility could influence client cash allocations."
In a separate statement, Charles Schwab said it will soon start offering Schwab Crypto to retail clients interested in spot trading of bitcoin and ethereum. The company eventually intends to add additional cryptocurrencies to the platform.
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