Charles Schwab
At the first place on our list is the well-known Charles Schwab. In the last report, this company had more than
37 million brokerage accounts and 5 million workplace plan participant accounts. Additionally, there are nearly 2 million deposit accounts through Schwab Bank, another unit of this large financial company.
Schwab started a bit later than Fidelity. Founded by Charles Schwab in 1971 in San Francisco as Commander Industries, Inc., the business was initially focused on securities broking and publishing a newsletter called Schwab Investment Indicator. The brokerage still publishes a quarterly investing periodical called OnInvesting.
Charles Schwab, the person, remains chairman of the firm today. The headquarters is in Westlake, Texas, with several branch offices in San Francisco and hundreds more throughout the world, mostly in the United States.
One of Schwab’s (the person and the company) notable achievements is lowering fees. Long before Robinhood and the Internet, Schwab started reducing commissions in the late 1970s after the New York Stock Exchange allowed member firms to set their own commissions.
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Fidelity Investments
Next in our list of the largest brokerage firms in the United States is Fidelity Investments, with more than 51.5 million
accounts.
Fidelity started in 1943 when Edward C. Johnson II became president of the Fidelity Fund. Since then, Fidelity has grown into one of the largest asset managers globally. Remarkably, it is still a private company, with Edward’s granddaughter Abigail Johnson serving as CEO today.
Fidelity was founded in Boston and remains headquartered there today. Although this New England city is the hub of the company, there are more than 200 Fidelity branch locations throughout the United States and another 13 offices outside the U.S. Fidelity employs more than 68,000 people, highlighting the sheer size of this brokerage firm.
Vanguard
Third on the list is Vanguard. This investing company boasts more than 50 million customers, many of
whom are loyal to the firm’s focus on low-cost index investing. This approach was pioneered by the company’s founder John C. Bogle, who started Vanguard in 1974.
Like Fidelity and Charles Schwab, Vanguard manages its own family of exchange-traded and mutual funds. These funds amount to trillions of dollars, showcasing the enormous size of this Pennsylvania-based company. The average expense ratio for Vanguard’s funds is just 8 basis points, reflecting the company’s commitment to low-cost investing.
Vanguard is unique in that it has no branch locations. Despite its online-only presence, it conducts both brokerage and investment-advisory businesses.
Vanguard’s ownership structure is also unique. The company is owned by its 423 funds, which are in turn owned by their shareholders.
J.P. Morgan
Fourth on our list is J.P. Morgan. With millions of customers and trillions of dollars in assets, this large brokerage firm caters to both retail and institutional clients. On the retail side alone, it has roughly $4 trillion in client assets. Its sister company Chase Bank has similar numbers, making JPMorgan Chase & Co. one of the largest financial-services companies in the world. It is headquartered in New York City.
Morgan Stanley/E*Trade
Rounding out the top five is Morgan Stanley with its discount broker E*Trade. Together, these two
investment firms have more than $2.7 trillion in client assets
through brokerage, investment-advisory, and workplace channels.
E*Trade was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020, giving the parent firm a large self-directed operation to
complement its wealth management, investment banking, and institutional services. The company is headquartered in Times Square in New York City.
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Merrill
Next is Merrill. Made up of the traditional firm Merrill Lynch and the online discount firm Merrill
Edge, this investing company is owned by Bank of America, creating another huge financial-services
company just behind JPMorgan Chase & Co. Merrill Edge has more than 4 million accounts, totaling roughly $320 billion in assets. That’s an average of about $107,000 per account.
Robinhood
Next on our list is Robinhood. The brokerage had slightly more than $221 billion in client assets,
which isn’t a huge number compared to other firms in our survey. However, the company has
more than 25.8 million accounts, a significant number given its recent founding in 2013. And the numbers are growing.
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Webull
An even newer brokerage firm on the scene is Webull. Founded in 2017, this investment firm has more than
23.3 million registered users globally. These
customers have deposited more than $13.6 billion in assets across both
brokerage and robo accounts. This phenomenal growth has led to a planned IPO on the Nasdaq
exchange in the second half of 2025. Expected valuation is around $400 million.
Headquartered in New York City, Webull is owned by a Chinese holding company. It operates
a few subsidiaries, notably in Singapore and Hong Kong. An HK-based account can trade
Chinese A-shares on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, an exciting service that’s hard to find
elsewhere.
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Updated on 4/22/2025.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.