I love those videos. It really does tell the story. Probably could be cut our meeting real short by just listening to that, and that's about it. We love our customers.
Anyway, welcome to the 2019 Annual Meeting. It happens to be our 32nd one since going public. It seems like yesterday. I can't believe it. I'm just in the middle of writing a book about the memoirs of Schwab.
And but I forgot to put it in the 1st meeting, 1st annual meeting. It was huge at the very time. We had just a public offering and we were over one of the auditoriums, sort of shrunk down over there. Really long term investors are right here in this room and thank you. And thank you for those on the website.
I'm happy to have you join. I think you'll be obviously be in a position to ask questions later when we get to that point in the meeting. So I'm personally very happy to be here for our 32nd, and I'm sure you are too. This meeting will give you an opportunity, as always does, to review our progress over the last year and get a little inkling of what's happening right now as well as what we hope for through the year of 'nineteen and a little bit into the future. It's also a chance to hear for us to hear from you with some questions.
And Walt and I will be up stage here trying to give some answers to our stockholders. Our agenda today is pretty much the same as it has been the last 32 years. No surprises there. First, Joe Martinello, who's our Chief Operating Officer now, will cover the business agenda and including going over a number of the proxy proposals. Following him, we'll hear from Peter Crawford, our CFO.
As you remember last year, Peter became our new CFO. We're thrilled to have Peter in that role. And I know Joe is too. Anyway, he will cover the spectacular results we had in 2018. It was really a record in every number you could point to.
And Peter will also go over some of the things about 2019. Notes here. After Peter's presentation, Walt and myself Walt will give a CEO report first. And then he'll share his perspective really on what's going on now and some of our strategies coming up and our plans on how to execute on those plans. And then following that, Walt and I will take a few questions from the audience, as many as you want, as long as you'll limit it to an hour, maybe less than that.
So I'd like to recognize our Board of Directors. These people work tirelessly. They come out here many times, nights before, sometimes committee meetings the day before. And it goes on a long, long time. And their interest is really to make sure this company is run properly.
And with all the things you would expect of us employees of the company to make sure that we're trustworthy and follow all the things that we have said we would do. And they do a fantastic job. And I'd like to have them be recognized. They're a stellar group of people with great backgrounds themselves. And their wisdom has really been very helpful to me and the management team.
So I'd like to read each of your names, if I could. And as I do, stand up, and we'll recognize you as a group, not individually. So John Adams, Walt Bender is over here, will be here. Joan Day, John. Chris Dodds, you remember him.
He used to be our CFO years years ago. And to see Bellas, see, and Mark Goldfarb, Bill Haraf? I mispronounce it. Frank Harringer? Steve Macklin.
Charles Ruffell. He's brand new just this year. Arun Soren, who could not be here, very similar to all of you, I'm sure he's been on the Board a long time and great service to the company. Paul Snee and Roger Walder. How about a big round of applause for them?
You don't know how important a great Board is. I tell you, it really helps a company through the thick times, thin times and so forth and give that great wisdom when we need it most. So I'd like to we have another group that's very important and outstanding in our dedication to our service. And so that was the Board. We have 5 of the Board members, including myself, are up for reelection and part of the proxy that was sent to all of you: John Adams, who you've just met Steve Ellis Arun Sarin, Paula Sneed and myself, we want to thank you for your positive votes and withhold your negative votes.
We don't want to hear about those. Thank you. Anyway, so that will be on the proxy, and we'll hear the results in a few moments. Our Executive Committee is with us today, and I'd like to have them rate well, you can say them now. How about a round of applause to our Executive Committee?
They worked tirelessly. Let me tell you, 2018 was such a fantastic year. It's amazing. We have almost 100% of tenants, some I would think be in the hospital. He worked so hard.
It was an unbelievable year. Then I'd like to also thank our employees generally. Some are probably watching in on their video and some are a few are here. We now have almost 20,000. It's hard to believe that when we started this little company a few years back, we had started with 4 people.
And now we're 20,000. It just shows I think we're doing something right for our clients, our customers and so forth. Anyway, I'd like to thank each of our employees for their contributions this last year to making such a record time. And I love their dedication to what they do every day in helping our clients do a better job about investing and taking care of that financial part of their life. How about a round of applause for And of course, most important, I want to say my thank yous to our clients.
They make this company a wonderful company in so many different ways. And our clients really are, I would have to say, the purpose of Schwab. You saw what was up there. We live and die for our clients, and that's what we do every day. But thank you for trusting us and being loyal to us.
We really appreciate that so much. So now how about a round of applause for all those employees here? I know there's some clients in here also. So let's move on to the business portion of the meeting, and I'll have Joe come up and take the podium.
Thank you, Chuck. So I don't want you to worry unnecessarily. We won't get to the official results for a little bit, but I have a sneaking suspicion you're going to be okay. So the first order of business, I'd like to introduce our Inspector of Elections and our independent auditors. The Board of Directors appointed the Inspector of Election to conduct the voting for this meeting.
This year, our Inspector of Election is Quinity Trust Company. A representative from the Quinity, Bradley Kroeger is with us today. Mr. Kroeger has filed an oath of inspector. He's also informed me that based on a preliminary count, we have a quorum for this meeting because more than 93% of the company's approximately 1,300,000,000 shares that are entitled to vote are represented by proxy at this meeting.
Our independent auditors are Deloitte and Touche LLP. Ms. Carol Larson of Deloitte Touche is here at the meeting and will be happy to respond to your questions during the question and answer period. The polls are now open for voting on the proposals. You were a stockholder as of March 18th this year and you have not returned your proxy card, voted by telephone or voted on the Internet, or if you'd like to change the instructions in your proxy card or your telephone or Internet vote, you may vote at this time.
For stockholders in the room, please raise your hand and one of our representatives will give you a ballot. For those attending our virtual meeting, you may click on Vote Now on the webcast console to cast your ballot. Now I'd like to present the 3 proposals we're asking stockholders to vote on this year. The first proposal is to elect 5 directors. This year, John K.
Adams, Jr, Stephen A. Ellis, Arun Sarin, Charles R. Schwab and Paula A. Snead have been nominated for election to the Board of Directors. The second proposal is to ratify the selection of Deloitte and Tuchel LP as the company's independent auditors.
The third proposal is for advisory approval of named executive officer compensation. The Board of Directors has recommended that you vote in favor of each of the proposals to elect directors, ratify the independent auditors and provide advisory approval of named executive officer compensation. Each of these proposals is described in the company's 2019 proxy statement. If you'd like to review the 2019 proxy statement, you can pick up a copy of the registration desk. We've also been notified that a stockholder intends to present a proposal for your consideration at this meeting.
Tamara Sells representing the New York City Employees Retirement System, the New York City Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Police Pension Fund and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System will present the stockholder proposal requesting annual disclosure of EE01 data. Ms. Sells, will you please step forward to the microphone?
Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tamara Sells, and I'm here on behalf of the New York City Comptroller, Scott M. Stringer and the trustees of the New York City Pension Funds. I am pleased to introduce the funds' proposal, Proposal 4, which asks the company to disclose its EEO-one data that break down its workforce by race and gender, which it currently provides to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The Sustainability Standards Board, also known as SASB, lists employee diversity and inclusion as materiality metrics for the asset management and financial industry of which the company is a part of. Despite this materiality, the industry is characterized by persistent and pervasive underrepresentation of minorities and women, particularly in senior positions. As Commissioner Aguilar argues, the industry must do substantially better. Some companies in the industry are striving to improve the situation. However, absent comprehensive disclosure of quantitative data, it is difficult for share owners to evaluate the benchmark and the effectiveness and progress of these efforts.
We commend Charles Schwab for adopting diversity related policies, but the best way to evaluate the effective implementation of these policies and the company's commitment to diversity is to examine data, which the company does not currently disclose for which SASB recommends disclosure as a financially material issue to the company's industry. Charles Schwab, according to Glass Lewis, significantly lags its peers with respect to disclosure of information concerning diversity and inclusion. Peers T. Rowe Price and Bank of New York Mellon disclosed their EE01 data along with a growing list of companies in the financial industry. A number of organizations are also calling for enhanced human capital disclosures.
The Human Capital Coalition recommends fundamental disclosure around workforce demographics and composition. The International Organization For Standards published a human capital report recommending disclosure on diversity and recently SEC Chair Jay Clayton recognized the importance of human capital to the performance of firms has gone way up compared to 40 years ago. We urge Charles Schwab to recognize the increasing support for the proposal over time and to reveal its EEO-one data to reassure share owners that it is leveraging diversity to enhance long term value creation and to minimize reputational harm. And so with that, I'd like to thank you for your time and respectfully request the preliminary vote count as well.
Thank you. So the Board of Directors has recommended that you vote against this stockholder proposal. The statement against this proposal is contained in the 2019 proxy statement. If you've completed a ballot, please hand it to one of our Schwab representatives now. If you're participating in the virtual annual meeting, please click on Vote Now to cast your ballot electronically through the Internet at this time.
If you've completed a ballot during the meeting, your vote will be counted at the end of the meeting and reflected in the final report of the Inspector of Election and in the minutes of the annual meeting. The polls are now closed. The Inspector of Election has completed a preliminary count of the proxies that were voted during the weeks leading up to this meeting. The preliminary count shows that more than 95% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of each of John K. Adams, Jr, Stephen A.
Ellis, Arun Sarin, Charles R. Schwab and Paula A. Snead. So they've been elected to the Board of Directors. More than 96% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the ratification of the selection of Deloitte and Touche L.
P. As the company's independent auditors. So that proposal has been approved. More than 94% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of approval of named executive officer compensation and that proposal has been approved. Less than 40% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the stockholder proposal requesting annual disclosure of EEO-one data and that proposal has been defeated.
This adjourns the business portion of the meeting. Thank you very much for your attention. We'll now hear from our CFO, Peter Crawford.
All right. Well, thank you very much, Joe. It's a great privilege. Chuck said thrilled. I'm thrilled to be here with all of you today for our stockholder meeting and to have the opportunity to talk about our financial performance, both our historical financial performance as well as how we look at 2019.
But before I get into the meat of the presentation, we have this always very exciting, eagerly anticipated, if I can get this to work, forward looking statements page. The intent of which is to remind you that those of us on stage today will be talking about the future and to the extent that the future may unfold in ways that are different than the way we predict. Make sure you stay in touch with the latest information, our latest disclosures and other information on aboutschwab.com. But before we talk about the future, I want to talk about the past and specifically about 2018, which was a remarkable year on many fronts and a year in which Schwab delivered both record financial results and record business momentum. So a year ago at this meeting, it seems like a long time ago, but you may recall there was a lot of uncertainty in the market, a lot of uncertainty about the future path of interest rates, about Fed policy.
And given that uncertainty, we did something a little different. I laid out not one, but 2 different scenarios to describe our financial outlook for the year. And those scenarios varied. 1 assumed a single Fed increase, the other one assumed 3 rate increases. What they had in common was assumptions about modest market appreciation, somewhat of a flattening of the yield curve and a slight increase in trading activity or DARTs year over year.
And in that 3 rate hike scenario, we anticipated that our revenue would grow 13% to 15% year over year, that we'd achieve 200 to 400 basis points of operating leverage, meaning our revenue would grow 200 to 400 basis points higher than our expense growth, and that we'd achieve pretax margins of at least 43%. So now the year unfolded in general better than even that 3 hike scenario had contemplated. The equity markets were the biggest headwind as they fell actually 6%, thanks to the late in the year sell off that we saw. But the Fed hiked rates 4 times rather than 3. Interest rates, longer term interest rates stayed elevated for much of the year.
And perhaps the biggest surprise to the upside was that we saw a real surge in client engagement, driving trading activity up over 30% year over year. So given that strong macro backdrop, the strong client engagement, our success in gathering assets over of the year, we would have significantly outperformed that even that 3 rate hike scenario with revenue growth of 18% year over year. Now we capitalized on the favorable environment to move forward on some really important investments to help drive the profitable growth of the franchise over the long term. But even so, we're able to deliver 5.50 basis points of operating leverage and achieve a pretax margin of roughly 45%. So that was financial results coupled with the benefits of tax reform in 2018 allowed us to grow our earnings per share year over year by over 50% and achieve a return on equity for the full year of 19%.
Now I say to my colleagues at Schwab, many of whom are sitting here, that our stock price is not the only barometer or certainly in the short term, even the best barometer, the most accurate barometer for our success in executing on our strategy. And rarely has that been more true, I think, than in 2018, and particularly the latter part of 2018. Because even as we were successfully executing on our strategy, winning with clients, winning against a number of our competitors, our stock price obviously suffered in the latter part of the year. Now needless to say, we're aware of this dichotomy. At the same time, we're convinced that our strategy is the right strategy at the right time and that our stockholders will be rewarded as we execute on this strategy over the longer term.
So our success in 2018 paves the way for what we expect will be strong financial performance in 2019 as well. In addition to the usual variables this year around equity markets and interest rates and trading activity, we have an additional uncertainty around cash balances. Cash balances are influenced by a lot of factors, influenced by the markets, influenced by volatility, influenced by interest rates. And so we described this year a range of possible outcomes depending on how those cash balances grow over the course of the year. On the one hand, we can see an environment that where strong equity markets, low volatility, higher interest rates were, our balance sheet could shrink by 8% or 9%.
On the other hand, we could also see cash balances actually increase. Our balance sheet actually increased by 3% or 4%. And depending on what happens with that balance sheet growth, we could see our revenue growth range from 7% to 11%. Now we expect we'll increase our expenses year over year by roughly 6% or 7%, meaning that even if our balance sheet actually shrinks this year by 8% or 9%, we could still achieve pre tax margins at the same or even higher level than they were last year. So we can't control the environment, but we can control our approach to spending.
We're planning for expense growth this year of 6% or 7%, with a big portion of that focused on initiatives and investments that will drive greater efficiency across our whole business. Now that 6% or 7% is less than what we a slower growth rate than what we did in 2018, but still a bit above what we view as the longer term average in the low to mid single digit level. A big portion of that spending is on application modernization, business process transformation, digital transformation. These are investments that we believe will help us get to that low to mid single digit level of expense growth and also help us drive down expense on client assets or what we call EOCA. So it's a really, really important metric.
It measures our overall cost structure and efficiency. And our cost structure, our scale is a huge competitive advantage for us. And so we're very, very focused on continuing to drive that measure down. But really importantly, we want to do so in a way that doesn't come at the expense of our clients. And that's what's really exciting about these initiatives.
Digital transformation, for example, creates a better client experience at the same time that lowers the cost to serve those clients. So how are we doing so far in 2019? Well, the Q1 was very, very strong. But a 14% growth in revenue year over year, buoyed in large part by an increase in net interest revenue, a function of higher interest rates and higher balances. Expenses grew 5% year over year.
Now with that 900 basis points of operating leverage in the first quarter allowed us to increase our pre tax margins by 4.5 points versus the Q1 of 2018 and achieve a return on equity of 20% for the 3rd consecutive quarter. So we have the opportunity this year and beyond to be that rare company that's driving both strong top line growth as well as returning capital to our stockholders. With the transfers behind us, we should be in a position over the coming quarters years to be generating excess we wanted to conserve that capital, support the balance sheet growth. We're as we wanted to conserve that capital support the balance sheet growth. But we expect that it will I would expect it will trend up towards the middle part of that range and potentially even the upper part of that range in the coming quarters years.
To the extent that we have capital in excess of what's needed for the dividend and what's needed to drive the growth of the business, our focus will be on utilizing the $4,000,000,000 buyback authorization that the Board approved back in January and moving our Tier 1 leverage ratio closer to that 6.75% to 7% operating objective. So let me close with just a few thoughts. First, our strategy is working, producing strong business momentum and strong financial results. 2nd, we see the opportunity for strong financial performance, top line as well as a strong increase in earnings per share, even without a lot of help from the Fed, without a lot of help from the market environment, without a fundamental shift in our clients' behavior with regard to their cash. And third, we're really bullish on the longer term opportunity.
We have 7% share of the U. S. Investing wealth with a leading position in the 2 fastest growing segments, the RIA channel and online brokerage. We're benefiting from some really important long term secular trends, trends towards lower price, trends towards more of a fiduciary model delivering advice, trends towards greater transparency. Our competitive position has never been stronger, allowing us to take share from a wide range of competitors.
We have a lot of opportunities to drive greater efficiency across our whole business, but do so in a way that's actually good for clients. And we have a track record of following through on our commitments, the most important of which is seeing the business through clients' eyes. That also means managing risk appropriately, acting with discipline and meeting or exceeding the expectations of our clients, of our employees, of our regulators and of all of you, our stockholders. With that, thank you very much. And let me bring up Walt Boettinger for the CEO report.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I, as Peter said, it's a thrill and an honor to be able to spend time with you again. It seems like I've done this for a long time. And I particularly need that thrill today because I have to admit, I'm still in a little bit of mourning, giving my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers did not succeed in the NBA lottery draft last night.
And instead, we'll have to settle for the 5th choice in the draft. But no, it is a great honor to be with all of you again this year. One of the things that's special about this annual meeting is the opportunity to hear from our founder and my close colleague, Chuck Schwab. 45 years ago, he started this firm and he really started the firm on a very simple concept, the concept of the Golden Rule, that we would treat others the way we would want to be treated if we were investing. And today, that golden rule manifests itself through what we call the virtuous cycle.
And this slide here illustrates an example of the virtuous cycle. It really starts by challenging the status quo for investors at the very top. And of course, that's what Chuck did 45 years ago and what we still do still do today. Looking at the investing world and utilizing the knowledge that we have about investing to figure out ways to serve our clients in a better manner, lower cost, better service, more responsiveness. And along with that means that as our company grows, because clients entrust us with more of their money, we share back with them the benefits of that growth and scale.
So in 2018 alone, we shared back with clients proactively almost $400,000,000 in the form of lower pricing. That starts the virtuous cycle. And of course, as we share with our clients, they reward us. And they reward us by entrusting us with more of their assets. Last year, over $225,000,000,000 in net new money.
Even when I say that, it's remarkable to think about. The Wall Street Journal recently did an article on Schwab and talked about how almost $700,000,000 in net new money is entrusted to us each and every calendar day of 2018, a tremendous recognition of the fact that investors will reward us for operating with the Golden Rule by serving them in the way we'd want to be served. Bring that together, it totaled over $10,000,000,000 in revenue last year, as Peter mentioned, over a 50% growth in our earnings per share. And we invested in the business relatively aggressively with about a 12% increase in expense, which is balanced among both ongoing investing in serving clients as well as projects for the long term. And then that starts the cycle all over again.
And that cycle has been at play for 45 years. And that's what driven the success to where we are today, almost $3,700,000,000,000 in client assets at Schwab. Rather amazing, I was looking back at some numbers from one of the first times I had the opportunity to share with you about a decade ago. We were just over $1,100,000,000,000 then, from 1.1 trillion to $3,700,000,000,000 in 10 years.
Last year
was a very interesting year in terms of client engagement. Client engagement was at record levels almost all the way across the firm. Of course, I mentioned the $225 plus 1,000,000,000 in net new assets, But engagement occurred in trading. DARTs is our code word. DART stands for daily average revenue trades.
I realize that we would have done a nice job to have spelled that out. But trading was up. Brokerage accounts grew. Investing in ETFs continues to grow very rapidly, with over $115,000,000,000 in Schwab Managed ETFs that lead the industry, by the way, in terms of great pricing. And of course, investments in some of our low cost cash products like money market funds grew almost 200%.
And what's important in putting all this together is the impact it has competitively in the marketplace. This slide shows you the growth in clients and trusting us with their hard earned dollars, the ultimate measure of whether our strategy is succeeding. People often say to me, Well, isn't the ultimate measure what your stock price has done? No, the ultimate measure is whether clients entrust us with their money. Stock price comes after the fact.
Financial results are a result of doing the right thing in serving others and doing the right thing in serving our clients. Historically, we've averaged somewhere between 5% 8% growth rate in net new assets. And you can see in 2018, a year of high engagement that we are right up at the top of that range, around just under 8% in for the full year. Many times, people will ask me, what really is the secret sauce behind Schwab? And of course, I'll often talk about the strategy that Chuck formulated, the through client size, the golden rule strategy.
But there are some very important competitive advantages also worth acknowledging that we leverage today. The first, of course, is size and scale. With almost $3,700,000,000,000 that makes us the largest publicly traded retail investment services firm in the country. And that scale enables us to make investments that we can leverage across a broad base of clients and a large pool of assets to deliver ever better value to our clients while still being able to reward our stockholders. 2nd, operating efficiency.
Because we are tight when it comes to spending money and because we believe that every dollar we spend is actually your dollar as our stockholders and treat it that way, we operate substantially more efficiently than any other publicly traded investment services firm. We actually operate our company at a total cost of around 16% or 17%, one hundredths of a percent of client assets. That's our total operating cost. Our nearest publicly traded competitors average at least 50% higher operating cost than we do. That's all part of that virtuous cycle that puts us in a position to return more to our clients rather than spending more by being an inefficient operating company.
Our culture of service, all it takes is spending a couple of minutes with our founder to know that a company like Schwab would have a culture of service to others. We recognize that when we serve others in the way we would want to be served, that's part of that magic sauce that has resulted in our long term growth. We have a powerful operating structure combining the ability to offer brokerage services, banking services as well as asset management services. That operating structure works to our advantage. I'd also want to share one other thing I think works to our advantage that many people may think the opposite of.
I think being a public company works to our advantage in serving our clients because being a public company ensures transparency. It ensures that we have meetings like this. It ensures that when we talk about our results, we share all of the details behind them and that you understand the risks that we take, the risk decisions that we avoid making, the way we make decisions. I think a public company is a much more a place that gives me much greater confidence around investing and entrusting my dollars with. Of course, our reputation is very high.
We're recognized consistently by 3rd parties. Fortune Magazine represent are recognizing us as one of the most admired companies in the world, and we receive a lot of 3rd party accolades. I can mention a bit more about those later. And then the last one, core to the Schwab values and core to our culture, The world doesn't stand still. We're constantly dealing with a changing and evolving competitive landscape.
And successful companies are always willing to say, we've done it this way, and it's worked well, but there's a better way to do it. Now in the process, we might actually go backwards from a revenue standpoint for a period. That's okay. If it's the right thing to do for our clients, we're always going to take that path and disrupt ourselves. Of course, we know what the alternative to that approach is, as you sit back and wait for someone else to disrupt you.
And we've never been that kind of company. We've always been the kind of company that will take the action ourselves, even if it means short term financial pain, if it's the right thing to do in serving our clients. These are just some examples of some tactical efforts that we have made in the last year and are ongoing in investing and building for the long term health of the franchise. 2, I'll call out. 1st, in the upper right hand corner, you can see the explosive growth in ETFs.
We're now up to almost, well, just over $180,000,000,000 in our ETF OneSource program. Now you might say, well, why did you do ETF OneSource? Well, ETF OneSource lets our clients invest in ETFs with no commission. You might say, well, why does that matter? Well, it matters because one of the best ways to invest is to invest on a consistent ongoing basis, dollar cost averaging.
But historically, before we introduced the concept of 0 commission ETFs, a regular Main Street investor was not able to do that investing in ETFs because as they invested their $100 or $150 a month, too much of what went into the ETFs was eaten up in commissions. So we said, well, there has to be a better way to do it. And the way we came up with was, we will not charge any commissions on now over 500 ETFs. And that has taken us from almost nowhere in the ETF industry to really the leader of retail investing in exchange traded funds. The lower left, I just want to mention something that we recently introduced.
And this is the 1st significant organization to offer subscription pricing for financial planning. What we know is that investors who do planning for their future make better decisions. They tend not to bail out when the market goes down. They tend to be more likely to meet their goals. They tend to stay with a plan.
But here's the problem. If the cost of the planning outweighs the benefit, it's hard for the client to make the progress they would otherwise make. So we introduced, again, a first time subscription model, where for a single $300 fee, followed by $30 a month, any client can have unlimited access to a certified financial planner whenever they want to have that interaction. It's a unique idea in the market. It's the right thing for clients.
And that's why we were excited to introduce it. I mentioned earlier 3rd party recognition. After a series of years of being recognized by J. D. Power as the highest quality service for full service brokerage.
This year, we flipped over and won for direct self directed investors. Of course, we are also recognized by Fortune as one of the most admired companies in the world and rated by Investors Business Daily, one of the most credible organizations evaluating investment firms as the number one overall broker. I mentioned earlier that we've grown in the last decade that I've had the opportunity to stand on this stage and speak with all of you from $1,100,000,000,000 to $3,700,000,000,000 But I think what's maybe most important, more important than the growth and more important than the change in that asset is what hasn't changed. And that is the guiding principles that we use to execute on our strategy. We call our strategy, as Peter referred, through client size, very simple.
We try to look at every decision we face, what would be in the best interest of our clients. If we take that action, they've proven to us over the years they'll reward us with more in the way of their assets. Five principles we stand by, and I just want to quickly run through them because these are so important to anyone looking to understand what Schwab stands for and how we strive to operate. Trust is everything, earned over time, lost in an instant. Price matters more than ever and in our industry more than most.
It's our clients' money. The less they pay us, the more that stays in their pocket. Clients deserve efficient experiences every time. It's one of the reasons why we are investing tens of 1,000,000 of dollars in digital servicing the capability for investors to work with us in the manner that they want to. Every prospective or existing client is critical to our future growth, no matter how large or small.
At Schwab, we think that the beginning investor or even the small investor is just as important to us as the largest investor. That's why when most of the industry charged often 45 times as much to a small investor for asset management as they would charge to a large investor, We wiped out that whole concept. We said the fee we charge the largest investor will now be the same fee for managing, for example, a mutual fund that we charge the smallest. There should be no barriers to the smallest investor. That's often the way this company started with the smallest of investors back 45 years ago.
And then last and maybe summarizing most important a lot of these guiding principles, actions matter more than words. Clients, press, influencers, employees, they'll give credit to what we do, not what we say. It's important that we share with you our beliefs and how we operate the company. But what is maybe even more important than the words that we share with you today are the actions that we take. And we look to be held accountable to those actions.
So let me go ahead and share a few thoughts as we move to our Q and A session. Before I invite Chukam on the stage, just a couple of guidelines. Again, those of you who've been to our meeting know these guidelines before. But out of respect to the folks in the meeting and on the webcast, we really like this to be a forum for questions, not for statements. There's plenty of opportunity for people to make statements.
But this is an opportunity to ask questions. If you have a question, we have microphones here in the room. If you're on the web, you can type your question, and we have an individual who will relay those to us. Please share your name, city, state of residence, whether you're a stockholder or a proxy for a stockholder. We'd really like to limit questions to 1 per person, if possible, so that we can be honorable and respectful to everyone who might have questions.
And then I'd just like to encourage you to ensure the questions are about Schwab. That's what this meeting is for. It's an opportunity for us to share together about the company, about the things that we're working on. And if we do that, I think we're going to have a wonderful session. If you have specific questions on your account, Jeremy Hoover is here with you, I believe, from our upholstery branch.
We'll be able to talk to you about questions you might have there. And with that, Chuck, it's my honor to welcome you on stage again.
Great performance. Thank you very much. And thank you, Peter, over there for your performance. And you now have all the questions probably answered. But anyway, we'll take a few that may have not been covered.
All right. Wonderful. Yes, sir.
Hello. Thank you for the beautiful presentation. You have an amazing company. You have all the indices from sales, return on investment. What is Wall Street missing?
Do we need a Schwab Whisperer and tell those Wall Street people that your stock is undervalued?
We agree.
That was a perfect response, yes. We agree. As Peter said, we're building a company, not a stock. And we really believe if we take the long term view and serve clients in the way we want to be served, the stock ultimately reflects that over time. It always has for 40 for about 30 some odd years since we went public, and we're confident that it will in the future.
I didn't really mean we answered all the questions. We must have a few things. Once you ask Walt, what's he planning for the future after what he just described there? He's got some big oh, we have a questioner coming.
Bravo, Walt, that was a good speech.
Thank you.
My concern is we need to buy back some stock. And for a decade, we were diluting our shares like 3% a year, issuing shares without the stockholder proposal to do that. Well, now let's time to buy back those 3% a year. That's one idea. Another idea is we have employees who can apply for food stamps.
We have to do a better job there. The third question is a popular stockholder proposal is proxy access. How many loss what percent of our stock is necessary to obtain proxy access? Thank you.
Thank you, Derek. So I'll address the buyback part. Our Board of Directors earlier this year authorized, I believe, a $2,000,000,000 I'm sorry, dollars 4,000,000,000 buyback opportunity. And so we are implementing your advice, Dirk. Thank you.
Thank you for that. In terms of compensation for employees, What we want to try to do at Schwab is always ensure that anyone working at Schwab is appropriately compensated, recognizing the importance and what comes from a self esteem of being self supporting and try to also share with our employees. I didn't put it up on the chart that showed the virtuous cycle. But we try on a regular basis to not just compensate our employees appropriately, but also to provide special additional compensation to them. And we did that in the form of a stock grant to our employees in 2018.
December. With
the idea that exactly, with the idea that every employee would be able to What was the third one? Proxy percent. What's the percent required for proxy access? It did not pass at the vote last year. Thank you, Dirk.
Do we have other questions from the audience?
Our little friend here, is it your 3rd or 4th year now?
It's 3rd year.
3rd year in year. You're going to be a really smart investor, I know.
Ms. Tsai, is that right?
Yes.
Yes, sir.
And hi, Mr. Walt and hi, Mr. Chuck.
Hi.
And I am so happy to be a part of this suave story. Do you think the virtuous cycle will continue next the next 10 years? And this will be for my college funds.
Messiah, I can assure you that we are highly committed to the virtuous cycle. It really started, as I mentioned, 45 years ago. So I can be very confident that you're safe for the next 10 years as you save along with your parents for college. We will continue to operate our strategy based on the virtuous cycle. Thank you.
I would have to say let me add one thing about the virtuous cycle. I think you're absolutely correct. This virtuous cycle will continue for a long, long period of time, as long as people are working, saving and earning financial assets for their future. And I hope you do a lot of that. I know you're already started on that program.
But we all have to in our system of America, we have to we have Social Security, which is really important to all of us for sure. But beyond that, we have to save enough money. So when we retire, now we're all even look at me living longer than you ever would have thought. Many years ago, average person would live until 65. And now they're living until 80, 90, 100 even.
And so those years from 65 on up, you've got to live on your Social Security plus your other assets that you've earned so well. So when you're in retirement, enjoy yourself. Those are the golden years. You can look at me, see them playing my golf game and things like that. But I think the virtuous cycle will continue to be there as long as we take care of our customers with great low prices and great service, which we think we do pretty well at.
And as long as our customers perceive that that is true and we're competitive, this cycle will continue going. And we have wonderful employees to make it all happen.
Thank you, Mr. Chuck and Mr. Wall.
Thank you. There is no way I would have had that kind of courage when I was in the side. Good for you. Good for you. Have you any other questions from the audience or questions from the web console?
Okay. Well, if we don't, we'd like to thank all of you for joining us today, for being in attendance at our annual meeting. 32nd, is that right? That
was amazing. Yeah.
32nd annual meeting. Thank you so much for joining us. And we hope you have a wonderful year. We look forward to seeing you next year.
Thank you. Thank you.