Episode summary
Schwab Considering Prediction Markets, Netflix Earnings | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Rick Wurster, Verena Ross, Margi Murphy, Eric Clark
Summary
Charles Schwab’s CEO says the firm is open to prediction markets, but only if they are tied to financial events and fit its wealth-building mission. Rick Wurster argued that Schwab would avoid sports and pop-culture wagering, saying the firm wants products that add to clients’ wealth rather than detract from it. He also said Schwab is prioritizing spot crypto, private investing, lending, and AI tools for advisers and clients over a near-term prediction-market launch.
Wurster defended Schwab’s quarter as a broad-based strength story, pointing to record earnings, record revenue growth, rising client assets, and strong retail engagement even as trading behavior stayed disciplined. He said younger investors are central to the firm’s growth and that teen accounts are part of a longer effort to teach saving, investing, and compounding.
The episode also turned to Europe’s market watchdog, where ESMA chair Verena Ross said volatility, cyber risk, and private credit interconnections remain key concerns, while regulators are trying to simplify rules without weakening oversight. Bloomberg’s cyber reporting then highlighted Anthropic’s Mythos model, which researchers say can autonomously chain together bugs and create serious security risks. The show closed on Netflix, where an investor said the stock’s post-earnings weakness is noise relative to a longer-term path toward much higher earnings and possibly a trillion-dollar market cap by 2032.
Key takeaways
- Rick Wurster says Schwab may offer prediction markets only for financial events, not sports or pop culture, because the firm wants products that build wealth.
- Wurster said Schwab’s retail engagement stayed strong in April and that trading-oriented clients are taking smaller, shorter-term positions than a year ago.
- Verena Ross said market infrastructure has handled recent volatility orderly, but private credit, cyber risk, and geopolitical shocks remain important watch points.
- Anthropic’s Mythos model can reportedly chain together multiple software flaws, raising the risk of cyberattacks, espionage, and data theft.
- An investor argued Netflix can absorb short-term earnings noise and still reach a trillion-dollar market cap by 2032 if growth and margins keep improving.
Notable quotes
“our goal is to bring prediction markets to clients that are financially related that where you on average are going to add to your wealth as opposed to gambling oriented things”
“We are actually. So trading levels have stayed roughly similar as we come into April”
“we believe that variety of funding sources is important. At the same time, we need to be conscious of the potential risks that are there”
“I really believe we will be safer and better, and we will be much more secure with AI, but I think there's this dark period”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. — This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio.
Talk to us about the quarter because on several metrics you guys definitely beat and yet we do see the stock down on that revenue miss uh based on analyst estimates. How do you explain the miss and what do you think investors might be missing here?
Well, it was an exceptional quarter. We had record results, record earnings, record revenue growth. We had saw record new assets come into the firm in in March and it was a acrosstheboard growth.
Every one of our businesses grew double digits year-over-year. So, it was it was a really strong quarter for the firm. It was also a quarter in which what we do I think really stood stood out for investors.
We're a firm that stands behind every client, helps them get to where they want to be in their financial life. And in a market with more volatility, being in 400 local communities, having 16,000 advisers on our platform, uh, taking 8 million calls, all of those things makes a difference in the everyday lives of of people that invest at at Schwab. It was also a quarter when we made a tremendous amount of progress around innovation.
We uh launched teen accounts sending a strong signal to teenagers and parents in our country about the power of saving, investing and and compounding. We made significant progress in AI. We announced earlier this morning that we are launching uh spot bitcoin and ether and and we'll do so in the coming weeks.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- prediction markets
- financial sector earnings
- retail investing platforms
- ai model safety
- netflix earnings
Companies and tickers mentioned
- SCHW
- HOOD
- IBKR
- NFLX
- Charles Schwab
- Robinhood Markets
- Interactive Brokers Group
- Netflix
- Kalshi
- Polymarket
- Anthropic
Watch the episode
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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