Stifel Reports Y/Y Rise in Client & Fee-Based Assets for May 2025

Stifel Financial Corp. SF reported key operating results as of May 31, 2025, highlighting year-over-year increases in client and fee-based assets, despite volatility in equity markets.

Breakdown of SF’s May Operating Results

The company’s total client assets increased 8% year over year and 3% from the prior month’s level in May 2025, reaching $501.4 million. This is driven by market appreciation and the successful recruitment of financial advisors.

Fee-based client assets rose 13% year over year and 4% sequentially in May to $199.1 million.

Private Client Group's fee-based client assets were $173.6 million as of May 31, 2025, up 12% from the year-ago quarter and 5% from the previous month’s level.

Bank loans, net (including loans held for sale), were $21.2 million as of May 2025, up 7% year over year but down 2% sequentially.

Client money market and insured product balances decreased 2% on a year-over-year basis and nearly 1% on a sequential basis in May due to a lower Smart rate balance, as the Sweep deposit balance also witnessed a slight decline.

Final Words on Stifel

SF’s May total client assets and fee-based assets increased, indicating strong growth in client engagement and portfolio value. Further, a rise in bank loans, net, implies a positive trend in lending activities and revenue growth from this segment. However, declining client money market and insured product balances suggest a decline in liquidity and possibly a negative market perception.

In April, the investment banking activity was negatively affected by the market volatility. However, as the market stabilized, its momentum increased, and the investment banking pipeline strengthened throughout the quarter. Though IB revenue is expected to decrease in the second quarter of 2025, management remains cautiously optimistic for the full year 2025.

SF’s Zacks Rank & Price Performance

In the past year, Stifel shares have risen 25.5% underperforming the industry’s rise of 40.6%.

Currently, SF carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Performance of Other Finance Stocks in May

LPL Financial LPLA witnessed a rise in total brokerage and advisory assets in May 2025. The metric was $1.85 trillion, which grew 3.7% from the prior month and 26.5% year over year.

LPLA reported a total client cash balance of $49.2 billion in May, down 5% from the prior month but up 10.6% from May 2024. Of the total balance, $33.4 billion was insured cash, $10.6 billion was deposit cash, and the remainder consisted of money-market sweep and client cash balances.

Charles Schwab SCHW also released its monthly activity report for May 2025. The company’s total client assets were $10.35 trillion, up 12.4% from May 2024 and 4.6% from April 2025.

SCHW’s Client assets receiving ongoing advisory services were $5.24 trillion, growing 12.6% from the year-ago period and 3.9% from the prior month.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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