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Now that Charles Schwab ousted David Pottruck from the CEO position at the brokerage giant that bears his name, Schwab needs to concentrate on what it/he does best.
There's no one who has more interest in righting the ship of the company--that is obviously good for shareholders. Schwab is the largest discount broker and master of their own domain--Charles Schwab was the company "applying the pressure" when the government deregulated commission prices 20 plus years ago, as one commentator wrote. Charles Schwab is successful b/c of its identity. No high fees, but no costly personal advisors either. In the late 1990s, as individual investors plunged into their self-directed portfolios, Schwab and the other discount brokers exploded. Their revolutionary 1995 decision to drop commission fees from 80 to 30 bucks set the stage for a boom in the company's share price.

Then ETrade, Ameritrade, and their brethren crashed the fiesta and the shit really hit the fan. Online trading turned into a commoditized price-driven enterprise--Schwab positioned itself on the upper echeleons and paid the price. Dearly. When the stock market turned, the company tried to multi-task it all, engaging in poor transactions while failing to either reduce fees further or lend personal/advisor support to the guys who lost thier shirt post-99. What they did instead was buy U.S. Trust in 2000 for $2.7 billion and Soundview Technology, an equity research firm thereafter. All of a sudden you had a formerly low cost entity company morphing into a differentiated products holder. Ummm, no.

Schwab built its reputation via a focused strategy that fell out of bed when competition neared. No company can fight a war on both ends--high and low. Chuck can save the brokerage by returning to the basics. A revolutionary 180 in thier business model would spell, I beleive, further disaster. Keep it real, Chuck, and just give 'em what they want. High-ticket investors aren't feeling you, man. I read today that the company had the exact same top-line number in 2003 as it did in 2000--entailing all those costly expenditures resembled a sort of treadmill effect--going nowhere fast. Schwab is still the largest discount broker, holding $1 trillion in assets under management. The market is back on its feet, finally. A new pricing model may wreak further havoc so that's not the answer--re-establishing the company's core identity within a polarized Street mentality is. You can do it, Chuck.