Via FN London, July 9:
Boosted by legal win for the Trumps, Schwab account went on automated trading spree
In August, a New York appeals court delivered some good news to President Trump—and sent his Charles Schwab account into overdrive.
A panel of judges threw out a roughly $500 million penalty against the Trumps stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s fraud case against the family’s businesses.
The president’s trust had set aside money in a Schwab account to pay the fine, but the ruling freed up that cash for investments, people familiar with the situation said. Within days, the Schwab account was snapping up and selling dozens of stocks as an automated trading strategy put the cash to work.
Trump’s massive increase in stock trading, detailed in recent financial disclosures, has drawn scrutiny from government ethics watchdogs. After reporting dozens or hundreds of trades in filings through the first 15 months of his term, he began disclosing thousands more in recent weeks. His latest report revealed an avalanche of more than 21,000 trades over the course of last year.
Schwab, which has emerged as one of the Trumps’ go-to financial firms, is one of the major money managers at the center of that trading activity. Of the eight investment accounts detailed in Trump’s annual financial report, one managed by Schwab—identified only as “account no. 7”—held the most money, as measured by the minimum values assigned to each holding, and had among the highest volume of trades on or after the August court ruling, according to people familiar with the matter.
_ and JPMorgan Chase are two of the other financial firms handling investment accounts for the first family, some of the people said.
Trump has said his sons are managing all of his investments while he is in office. “My kids run it,” he said on CNBC earlier this month. “I’ve made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made, and I let people invest it I don’t even speak to.”
Much of the president’s wealth is held in a revocable trust. Trump is the sole beneficiary, though Donald Trump Jr. serves as the trustee, with sole voting power.
“All of the president’s assets are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” a White House spokeswoman said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.”
Since the president’s return to the White House in early 2025, the Trumps have turned to automated trading strategies. A Trump Organization spokesman said the family is taking that approach to alleviate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
One such strategy, direct indexing, involves buying individual securities that track the performance of an index—such as the S&P 500 or the Schwab 1000—while also generating losses that can be used to reduce capital-gains taxes. These automated strategies routinely buy and sell large quantities of stocks over the course of the year to hew to an index, and any influx of cash into the account will very quickly be redeployed....
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