SCHWAB vs. WALL STREET

摘要

Charles R. "Chuck" Schwab is never happier than when he's waging war against Wall Street. In fact, it has been his business model ever since 1973, when he founded the discount bro-kerage that bears his name. His aim back then: to exploit the end of fixed-rate commissions in 1975―a traumatic event that slashed brokers' revenues and drove dozens of old-line firms out of business. His successful OneSource no-fee mutual-fund supermarket, launched in 1992, brought about a profound change in that business. And Schwab's stellar performance after its 1996 leap into online trading eventually forced the mighty Merrill Lynch & Co., one of the last holdouts, to follow suit in 1999. Now the 64-year-old chairman and co-chief executive of Charles Schwab Corp. is again trying to rewrite the rules on Wall Street. On May 16, he announced moves aimed at capturing the most profitable customers of the likes of Merrill, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Salomon Smith Barney, and UBS Paine Webber―affluent clients with $500,000 to $5 million to invest. They constitute a huge market: By some estimates, they control nearly $11 trillion of investments in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash, or about half the total of all such investments owned by Americans.