JPMorgan, Schwab and UBS manage millions in Trump's $858 million investment portfolio

For years, the financial institutions handling President Donald Trump's sprawling investment portfolio have remained one of the most mysterious parts of his personal finances.

A CNBC analysis of Trump's 2025 annual financial disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics has linked JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, UBS and Stephens Inc. to at least four of his eight numbered investment accounts: Account Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 8.

CNBC traced the connections through firm-specific investment funds, deposit programs and credit arrangements embedded in the portfolios. Separate analyses by three financial-industry experts, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the president's holdings, corroborated CNBC's findings.

The disclosure does not always specify whether or to what extent each institution served as an investment manager, broker, custodian or in another capacity. The Wall Street Journal reported that a fifth account, Account No. 7, is managed by Schwab, though CNBC has not independently verified that relationship. Schwab declined to comment on whether Trump is a client.

Across all eight accounts, Trump disclosed at least $858 million in assets in 2025 — up from at least $237 million a year earlier — and more than 21,000 trades during the year.

The findings offer the clearest picture yet of who is handling Trump's portfolio and shed new light on the ties between hundreds of millions of dollars of the president's personal fortune and financial institutions.

CNBC found no evidence that the financial relationships influenced any government action or that Trump directed any specific transaction.

The Trump Organization told CNBC that outside financial institutions, not Trump, controlled the individual investment decisions. A spokesperson said the president's assets were placed in fully discretionary accounts that rely heavily on automated strategies to reduce potential conflicts of interest.

"There are no conflicts of interest," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CNBC when asked about Trump's banking.

Nevertheless, financial experts who spoke with CNBC said the arrangements put the firms in a sensitive position because they are tied to the wealth of a sitting president who can shape banking policy and regulation and who retains extensive domestic and foreign financial interests.

Ross Delston, a former FDIC banking regulator and lawyer who specializes in anti-money-laundering laws, said Trump's expansive global business interests, past legal and financial troubles and broad authority over the economy create "extraordinary" compliance and reputational risks for institutions — but also bring the prospect of substantial fees and potential access to the sitting president.

"It's quite remarkable to me that banks do seem to be interested in doing business with our president, given his history," Delston told CNBC. "They get access — access to the president of the United States. And that is known in my business as priceless."

Delston said, "The only way to view the president would be as an ultra-high-risk client from virtually every standpoint."

JPMorgan Chase did not respond to multiple detailed requests for comment about CNBC's findings and methodology. Stephens declined to comment.

A UBS spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that the bank had "no comment on this."

"As you know, we can't comment on client matters, regardless of whether a relationship exist or has ever existed," the spokesperson said.  

During Trump's entire first term, he made roughly 500 trades, according to his earlier disclosures. In 2025, that figure exceeded 21,000, driven at least in part by the automated investment strategy the Trump Organization says the president uses.

The bulk of those trades were linked to Schwab, UBS and JPMorgan, according to a CNBC analysis comparing the volume and value of transactions associated with each account in the financial disclosure.

Of the firms identified, Schwab appears to have the most extensive involvement with Trump's money, based on value and trading volume.

CNBC linked the firm to Account No. 6, which held at least $163 million. The Wall Street Journal reported that Schwab manages a second account, Account No. 7.

According to the Journal, Account No. 7 held about $302 million and the disclosure shows it generated about 10,500 transactions in 2025 — nearly half of Trump's disclosed trades. It was far the busiest and included major positions in Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia.

"We have strict policies governed by regulation regarding client privacy and do not comment on any current or former clients," Schwab spokesperson Mayura Hooper said in a statement to CNBC. She declined to comment on accounts 6 and 7. "Schwab serves 46 million client accounts, across different backgrounds, political affiliations, professions and viewpoints — and we apply the same standards to every client relationship."

The size and activity of both accounts associated with Schwab would not necessarily be unusual for an ultrawealthy investor, said Larry Harris, a former chief economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nor would Schwab be an unusual choice for such a portfolio, Harris told CNBC.

"This is typical for people with large portfolios, and Schwab can be cheaper and provide greater control over tax timing," said Harris, now a finance professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Trump's disclosure also showed that Schwab extended a pledged-asset line of credit of more than $50 million to his trust, allowing the trust to borrow against securities without selling them. The proceeds generally cannot be used to purchase additional securities.

Unlike other major banks such as JPMorgan and Capital One, Schwab was not among the institutions the Trump family accused of cutting ties with them after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The JPMorgan-linked Account No. 8 was active around the same time Trump accused the bank of "debanking" him for political reasons.

Account No. 8 disclosed 336 trades worth up to roughly $5.5 million on Aug. 4, 2025, the day before Trump's complaints. It reported another 50 trades worth up to $785,000 on Aug. 7, when Trump signed an executive order on debanking, and continued reporting transactions through December.

CNBC calculated the totals via the reported value ranges of each transaction.

Trump later sued JPMorgan and CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion, alleging the bank closed accounts belonging to him and his businesses for political reasons and placed them on a banking "blacklist." JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment but has previously denied the allegations and said the lawsuit has no merit.

The case remains pending, with no hearing or trial date scheduled as the court weighs whether to return it to Florida state court or transfer it to federal court in New York.

Other firms in addition to JPMorgan, Schwab and UBS appeared in narrower roles.

A Stephens-linked account, Account No. 5, held $1 million to $5 million in a bank-sweep program. The same account also held up to $66,001 in Stifel's FDIC-insured bank deposit program, which experts consulted by CNBC said was consistent with a residual balance left behind as the account moved from Stifel's program to the program at Stephens program.

Stifel did not respond to requests for comment.

Two of Trump's disclosed accounts, Nos. 4 and 8, also held Fidelity-branded mutual funds within broader portfolios that included large-cap stocks and municipal bonds.

"Based on the publicly disclosed materials, the president's accounts appear to include two Fidelity mutual funds," said a person with knowledge of the funds who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Trump has said his family oversees a trust while outside financial institutions control the investment decisions. But he hasn't named the firms.

"My kids run it," Trump said in a July 2 CNBC interview. "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."

Eric Trump wrote on X in May that the financial firms have "sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions, including asset allocation, trading, rebalancing, and portfolio management."

A Trump Organization spokesperson told CNBC that, to reduce potential conflicts of interest, Trump's portfolio relies heavily on direct indexing, an automated investment strategy increasingly used by wealthy investors.

Rather than buying an index fund, a direct-indexing account holds individual stocks selected to track a benchmark such as the S&P 500. Software continually buys, sells and rebalances the holdings to keep the portfolio aligned with the index.

"This is computer-driven trading," said Harris, the former SEC chief economist.

The approach can produce large bursts of transactions during volatile markets, when price swings create more opportunities to rebalance holdings or sell depreciated stocks to reduce an investor's tax bill.

For example, Trump's disclosures show a wave of purchases around major tariff news. On April 2, 2025, Trump announced sweeping tariffs that sent stocks tumbling. He paused most of them a week later, sending markets sharply higher, though he imposed a sweeping new tariff regime last week.

CNBC found no evidence that Trump or his family directed the individual transactions, including anything in anticipation of the tariff decision.

"Given that you have trustworthy fiduciaries who are involved in the process," Harris said, "it's really unlikely that any game playing is in those organizations. It's almost impossible to imagine it."

Direct indexing can also lower an investor's tax bill through tax-loss harvesting. When one stock declines, the software can sell it to capture the loss and buy another security that preserves the portfolio's broader market exposure. Those losses can then offset capital gains elsewhere in the portfolio.

Federal ethics rules require that if a president is using a blind trust to manage holdings while in office, it be controlled by an independent trustee and sharply restrict communications with the beneficiary about the holdings.

By contrast, much of Trump's wealth remains in a revocable trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to SEC filings. Donald Trump Jr. serves as trustee and holds sole voting power over certain assets, according to an SEC filing. A revocable trust can generally be amended — such as by replacing the trustee or changing beneficiaries — or dissolved by the person who established it.

Every president from Jimmy Carter through Joe Biden, except Trump, either established blind trusts or limited their investments to assets generally considered unlikely to create conflicts, such as diversified mutual funds, according to the Office of Government Ethics. Biden's disclosures showed no individual stock holdings.

The public records do not show whether Trump has exercised any power to amend or revoke the trust.

That gap between control over individual trades and ultimate ownership also creates compliance and reputational risks for the financial institutions managing Trump's money, Delston said.

"Banks that take him on have made a calculus that all of the truckloads of baggage that he brings is still worthwhile, whether because of the fees they can collect or other benefits of the relationship," he said.

Banks would almost always treat a sitting president as a "politically exposed person," or PEP, under their internal risk frameworks because the office can carry heightened corruption and money laundering exposure, Delston said.

"PEPs are expected to be given enhanced scrutiny, both at the onboarding stage and periodically through monitoring of their activities," Delston said.

Under federal anti-money-laundering rules, banks must understand the purpose of the relationship, know what activity should normally be expected, develop a risk profile and monitor for suspicious transactions.

For a client such as Trump, Delston said, that can mean contemporaneous review of wire transfers, checks, securities trades and other transactions to determine whether they raise suspicious-activity concerns.

"It isn't just determining whether there is suspicious activity involved," Delston said. "His accounts at any financial institution would require real-time monitoring."