Get caught up.
Natasha Solo-Lyons
On the surface, Charles Schwab being swept up in the wave of recent financial meltdowns makes little sense. The firm, a half-century mainstay in the brokerage industry, isn’t overexposed to crypto, startups or venture capital. Fewer than 20% of Schwab’s depositors exceed the FDIC’s $250,000 insurance cap, compared with about 90% at the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank. And with 34 million accounts, an army of financial advisers and more than $7 trillion of assets, it towers over regional institutions.
And yet, there are some questions. Investors are starting to unearth some risks that have been hiding in plain sight. Unrealized losses on a balance sheet loaded with long-dated bonds ballooned to more than $29 billion last year. At the same time, higher interest rates are encouraging customers to move their cash out of the very accounts that underpin Schwab’s business. Schwab shares have more than a quarter of their value since March 8. It’s all another indication that the US Federal Reserve’s effort to arrest inflation has caught the financial world flat-footed
