Schwab Trading Is Up After Dipping in August

Charles Schwab Corp., the biggest discount brokerage, said Tuesday that customers’ trading dropped for the second consecutive month in August but has begun to rebound this month.

Shares of the San Francisco-based brokerage rose as Chief Financial Officer Christopher Dodds said he was “comfortable” that the firm would earn at least 9 cents a share this quarter, meeting analysts’ forecasts. The stock ended the day up 62 cents, or 5.4%, at $12.10 in New York Stock Exchange trading.

Schwab clients made an average of 126,800 commission-generating trades a day in August, down 15% from 148,600 in July but up 8% from August 2002. During the first nine trading days of September, average client trades rose to 164,000 a day, the company said.

“Both [Chief Executive] Dave Pottruck and I have thought that September would be the key month in gauging the sustainability of this uptick in investor engagement that we’ve seen,” Dodds said.

From Bloomberg News