david s. pottruck, who had spent the majority of his 20 years at the brokerage as schwab's right-hand man, shared the ceo title with schwab from 1998 to 2003. in may 2003, schwab stepped down, and gave pottruck sole control as ceo. just a year later, on july 24, 2004, the company's board fired pottruck, replacing him with schwab. news of pottruck's removal came as the firm had announced that overall profit had dropped 10 percent, to $113 million, for the second quarter, driven largely by a 26 percent decline in revenue from customer stock trading. after coming back into control, schwab conceded that the company had "lost touch with our heritage", and quickly refocused the business on providing financial advice to individual investors. he also rolled back pottruck's fee hikes. the company rebounded, and earnings began to turn around in 2005, as did the stock.