Between the WSJ article , what I’m reading on the threads here, and the sinking stock price, is there any hope left for Schwab? I was there over 5 years before being laid off and while there were some tough times, it wasn’t this consistently negative. Any chance for a comeback?
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I realized that rowing someone else's boat (actually designing it and making sure it works) feels great until you start to show any kind of lethargy and they find someone else to attempt this who will work for less money, double the hours while also at the expense of their own youth. Then you realize that was you also so many years ago. We should all be taught from a young age that we can actually just have our own boat rather than fighting like dogs for a better seat at someone else's table.. but some are really good at that
For the person that mentions J.P. Morgan and Dimon, you are so wrong. They were not bailed out, they were forced to take bail out money because of optics. Do some research…they were the only big bank that didn’t need a bail out, that’s well known, but had they not been forced to take money, it would have signaled that every other bank was complete garbage and everyone would have pulled their money from them, and sunk them and the whole world economy much worse.
Schwab can’t compete with JPM in wealth management or anything else. One is a Rolls Royce and the other one is a Lexus, maybe, and Schwab isn’t the Rolls. Yes I work at Schwab.
It’s the new normal. It’s depressing.
I think it could get worse still… I think the company has a lot more scrutiny now due to its size… they say the are conservative but in my experience they aren’t with anything revenue related. I think regulators will eventually spot it and the spiral will continue.
Right now crying doomsday is dramatic. Schwab can survive and is too big to fail so if it gets dire, a number of parties including regulators will step in. Hopefully that doesn’t happen because the downstream impacts will be pretty horrible. But also, Schwab could fall far behind any competition and need to really regroup after what leadership has done. And smaller, scrappier likely fintech firms will try to fill that gap in the short-term.
Schwab’s proverbial “coiled spring” has always been a slinky. You can’t have revenue growth from higher rates when you don’t know how to manage your business or your balance sheet.
Shameful to see how poorly this was managed by executives. It cost thousands of jobs and billions in investor losses.
It will definitely be a Transition Year and that is new buzzword replacing the old buzzword of Synergy. The EC think we are mindless sheep and will believe whatever they say. There will be more layoffs as we Transition and we will see a freeze in hiring. Managers will have to Transition to squeeze more juice out of the front lines and keep engagement high or find themselves on a PIP. It will be a year of Transition for the worse and a Transition of more lies from the EC.
Transition is because they are still saddled with the debt they took on to keep the balance sheet in check. Taking the money they get from principal payments on the mortgage bonds to pay down this debt. Just a note, the bonds on the books accounting for these issues was 15 yr mortgages.... With higher rates, prepayments drop, and folks less likely to sell those homes, pay off that mortgage...
The debt is costlier, and was a key driver in quarterly income going from 2 bil to 1 bil.
Thus a transition, hopefully the geniuses are taking this into account for our eps targets for next year
"Transition Year" - what a crock of bs. A term they have latched to just because it is convenient. Not sure the leadership(or lack of) knows which way is up
You have this wrong
2024 is a transitional year. We are finalizing TDA migration, sts is is moving from the 1970s to the 2000's in ways of working, a number of EC (CEO) will be retiring. This coupled with hiring and budget lockdowns mean nothing is going to happen this year.
There is a ramp up of a transformation org. To me this is the next step of digital. Digital was a complete org ramped up with a single cause. Now we have an org to "assist" in high priority areas each year.. like wfs in 2024.
Thought I'd chime in to reduce the misinformation that happens on this website.
Either way 2024 is a wash. BAU as we regroup. Hope we don't far too far back from the competition during that.
Corporate double speak.
The plan is to anoint Rick when Walt leaves. Rick is a McKinsey trained zealot who focuses on cost control. This isn’t bad in general and certainly STS needs scrutiny, but Rick’s the wrong guy at the wrong time.
When the employees and customers are unhappy for this long and the response is as bad as Walt’s has been I can’t help but picture Enron at the fall with arrogant managers. Any fool who bought into the interest rates will make us gods nonsense needs to revisit that belief.
The only saving grace for us is a lack of competition. Who would customers flee to? Fidelity? Vanguard? JP and Dimon? Yeah, Jamie. The guy who became a genius after being bailed out in 2008 when they were moments away from AIG status.
It is a transformation year. You and I hear things will hopefully get better. The EC hears more of the same to reduce headcount, improve our bonuses and outsource. It hasn’t gotten better in many years. The solution? Everyone back in the office! And we are pi---d you aren’t in the office! And if you get Covid because you’re in the office too bad. Such leadership. There’s no transformation that would benefit us or the firm. Only egos that have demolished a once decent firm.
Recently all the senior leaders seem to be talking about this is a transformation year. There's a new transformation org. I've not heard anyone say what we are transforming or what we're transforming into. Buzzwords that look good in a management powerpoint. Hopefully they've thought about this in more detail than the buzzwords.