Pure Benchmarks · Portfolio Benchmark Report
Is Your Charles Schwab Portfolio Underperforming?
Charles Schwab is a large discount brokerage offering self-directed trading, managed portfolios, and a default cash sweep for uninvested balances.
Pure Benchmarks ranks real Charles Schwab portfolios against thousands of other verified investor portfolios across nine standardized risk categories, from 100% equity to 90% fixed income. Every portfolio is recategorized daily from actual end-of-day holdings, and Community Nests shows exactly where your Charles Schwab portfolio ranks against other real Charles Schwab clients in the same risk category — built entirely from verified portfolio data, with no firm that manages money able to see any data point on the platform.
Why your Charles Schwab portfolio can lag a pure index baseline
The default-settings drag. Large brokerages often route uninvested cash into a default sweep that earns close to nothing, while in-house managed solutions carry their own expense ratios. Left on default settings, the gap against a pure index baseline widens quietly over time.
What to review on a Charles Schwab portfolio
- Check the yield on any uninvested cash sitting in the default sweep versus market money-market rates.
- Look at whether in-house funds or managed solutions add costs beyond a plain index baseline.
Illustrative 10-year comparison — a standard managed portfolio versus a pure index baseline. Figures are illustrative only.
| Year | Standard managed portfolio | Pure index baseline | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $105,200 | $107,000 | -$1,800 |
| Year 3 | $116,400 | $122,500 | -$6,100 |
| Year 5 | $128,700 | $140,300 | -$11,600 |
| Year 7 | $142,300 | $160,600 | -$18,300 |
| Year 10 | $165,100 | $196,700 | -$31,600 |
See exactly where your Charles Schwab portfolio stands.
One clean report against a pure index baseline. No email required.
See Your Free Benchmark ReportCompare other firms
- Is your Fidelity portfolio underperforming?
- Is your Vanguard portfolio underperforming?
- Is your E*Trade portfolio underperforming?
- Is your Interactive Brokers portfolio underperforming?
- Is your Merrill Edge portfolio underperforming?
- Is your Fidelity Investments portfolio underperforming?
New here? Read the Pure Benchmarks blog or the portfolio benchmarking FAQ.
Answer the bigger questions
This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.