Charles Schwab’s in-house suite of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), known as Schwab ETFs, has passed the $10 billion assets under management milestone, less than three and a half years after its first ETFs were launched in November 2009.
Marie Chandoha, president of Charles Schwab Investment Management, investment manager for the Schwab ETFs.
The US-listed ETFs, which are among the cheapest globally in terms of annual fees, have benefited from investors’ search for core, low-cost portfolio building blocks, as well as the general shift towards passively managed products.
The suite is composed of 15 ETFs in total, tracking a combination of US and international equities markets and US fixed income assets. The funds vary in size from the Schwab Intermediate-Term US Treasury ETF (SCHR) with $207 million in assets to the Schwab US Broad Market ETF (SCHB) with $1.63 billion.
Marie Chandoha, president of Charles Schwab Investment Management, said: “I want to thank investors for choosing Schwab ETFs as the right place for their hard-earned assets. For Schwab ETFs, what matters most is that we continue evolving to meet client demand for quality ETFs in key asset classes at an incredible value. And, we think that crossing the $10 billion mark in such a short period of time is just the beginning.”
When Schwab debuted its first ETFs in 2009, the company broke new ground by offering them to Charles Schwab broker clients commission-free online. In September 2012, Schwab further lowered costs by slashing expense ratios across its in-house suite – each ETF has the lowest operating expense ratio in their respective Lipper category. For example, the Schwab US Broad Market ETF (SCHB) has an operating expense ratio of just 0.04%, compared to 0.06% for the comparable Vanguard ETF and 0.15% for the iShares equivalent.
Schwab ETFs continue to be available commission-free online, and are also part of the new $0 commission ‘OneSource’ platform featuring 105 ETFs from leading providers including SSgA SPDR, PowerShares, Guggenheim, ETF Securities and United States Commodity Funds.
The Schwab ETFs are listed on the NYSE Arca.