Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) said on Monday that it will move its stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from the Nasdaq on March 5, under its current symbol “SCHW”. Till then the shares of Schwab will continue to trade on the Nasdaq.
 
Schwab is returning to the NYSE to join its natural comparative set of household names in financial services. Schwab had moved from the NYSE to the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2005, when the battle of switch-over listings between the exchanges accelerated. 

Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Charles Schwab is a leading provider of securities brokerage, banking, and other financial services to individual investors, institutional clients and other broker-dealers. 

Schwab’s fourth quarter 2009 earnings of 14 cents per share were a penny short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. However, this compares unfavorably with earnings of 27 cents in the year-ago quarter. The earnings for the quarter were also consistent with Schwab’s estimate in mid-December. 

Schwab continues to be in good financial shape despite the deteriorating financial environment, with multiple sources of liquidity, a sound capital position, and a quality balance sheet that enabled it to end 2009 with solid client metrics.
 
Furthermore, the company aims at protecting its financial strength and operating performance by managing expenses even more aggressively in the coming quarters. Management expects reductions in staffing (focused on non-client service roles), along with reductions in professional services, development projects, and certain aspects of the company’s marketing activity. 

We suspect that the results of Schwab will continue to be impacted by the challenging market conditions. However, stronger client trading activity resulting from increased market volatility and management’s aggressive efforts to control cost will provide some support in the upcoming quarters.
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