Charles Schwab’s self-directed brokerage accounts saw a 13% uptick in the average account balance across all participant accounts in the second quarter, the company said.
Schwab said the second quarter ended with an average account balance of $285,616, a 3.3% increase year-over-year and a 13% increase from the first quarter. The report includes data collected from about 152,000 retirement plan participants who have balances between $5,000 and $10 million in their Schwab Personal Choice Retirement Account.
The report showed that trading volumes slightly jumped in Q2 to 14 trades per account from 13.4 trades in Q1.
Except for an increase in equities holdings from 27% in Q1 to 30% in Q2, asset allocation remained similar. Mutual funds continue to hold most of participant assets (33%), followed by equities (30%), ETFs (18%), cash (17%), and fixed income (2%).
As for allocation trends, the data showed that within mutual funds, large-cap funds had the largest allocation at about 31%, followed by taxable bond (21%) and international (14%) funds.
Within the equities investment category, information technology remained the largest equity sector holding at 30%, up from 29% in Q1. Apple’s stock held on as the top overall equity holding with 11% of the equity allocation of portfolios. Included in the top five equity holdings were Amazon (7.1%), Microsoft (3.5%), Tesla (3.0%), and Berkshire Hathaway (1.9%).
Among exchange-traded funds (ETFs), most investors (47%) put their money in U.S. equity, followed by U.S. fixed income (18%), international equity (12%) and sector ETFs (12%).
The report also showed that Gen X (age 40 to 55) had a higher participant rate (43%) in SDBAs, followed by 36% of baby boomers (age 56 and over) and 15% of millennials (29 to 39). Not surprisingly, boomers had the highest average account balance at $418,743, followed by Gen X at $231,798 and millennials at $76,282.
Millennials had the least amount of advised accounts (11%) and they were most popular for engaging in mobile trades (33%). Gen Xers had the most advised accounts at 46% and 28% of mobile trades, and boomers had 40% of advised accounts and 20% of mobile trades.