MS Wealth Management IRA AUM Crosses $1T Mark: What Does This Mean?

Morgan Stanley’s MS wealth management arm has crossed a key milestone, with individual retirement account (IRA) assets under management (AUM) exceeding $1 trillion. This highlights strong momentum across advisor-led, workplace and self-directed channels, underscoring the company’s growing scale in the retirement savings market.

The milestone underscores Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s strong position in an area that offers sticky client assets, recurring fee-based revenues and long-term cross-selling opportunities. The company noted that IRA AUM expanded at a 15.8% compound annual growth rate since 2022, outpacing the broader industry’s 13.6% growth.

It also signals that Morgan Stanley is deepening relationships with clients who increasingly want retirement planning, investing, banking and workplace benefits integrated on a single platform. The company has been leaning on its broad wealth ecosystem, including E*TRADE, to serve both mass-affluent and higher-net-worth investors as retirement assets continue to migrate toward firms offering digital tools and advisory support. MS also plans to roll out a more comprehensive retirement planning tool later this year through E*TRADE.

This aligns with Morgan Stanley’s broader wealth management growth strategy. If the company can continue converting retirement inflows into broader client engagement, the long-term payoff could extend beyond asset growth to stronger profitability, better client stickiness and a higher-quality revenue mix.

Overall, the $1 trillion IRA AUM level reflects both operating momentum and strategic depth, which should support Morgan Stanley’s earnings durability over the long term.

Other Firms Expanding Retirement Planning Business

Schwab SCHW remains a formidable retirement-market rival, leveraging its workplace platform, advisor solutions and retail channels to broaden reach. Schwab ended 2025 with 5.7 million workplace plan participant accounts and $11.9 trillion in client assets. This shows scale as Schwab deepens retirement-plan, rollover and advisory opportunities across its franchise.

LPL Financial LPLA is expanding its retirement business by using its large independent-advisor network, employer-sponsored plan capabilities and IRA rollover solutions to capture more long-term assets. With more than 32,000 advisors and about $2.4 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets at 2025-end, LPL Financial is building greater scale in retirement-related wealth management. Its partnership with Prudential to launch a lifetime income strategy also shows that LPL Financial is broadening retirement offerings beyond traditional advisory products.

Morgan Stanley’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Morgan Stanley’s shares have gained 31.7% over the past year.

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From a valuation standpoint, MS trades at a 12-month trailing price-to-tangible book (P/TB) of 3.12X, above the industry average.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Morgan Stanley’s 2026 earnings suggests a 8.9% rise on a year-over-year basis, while 2027 earnings are expected to grow at a rate of 7.1%. In the past month, earnings estimates for 2026 and 2027 have moved marginally upward.

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MS currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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

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