Schwab has lowered fees on all of its fifteen proprietary exchange-traded funds, Marie Chandoha, president, Charles Schwab Investment Management., said during a monthly media briefing Friday.
The company cut fees 25% to 60%. The weighted average overall expense ratio for all of Schwab ETFs has come down to 7.7%, Chandoha said.
The overall expense ratio for the U.S. Broad Market ETF, one of the company's most popular ETFs, was reduced from 0.06% to 0.04%. The overall expense ratios are now the lowest in their respective Lipper categories.
The new pricing went into effect Thursday evening.
Walt Bettinger, president and CEO of Charles Schwab & Co., said this development is one of the ongoing strategies the company has enacted to continue to improve client satisfaction.
"In this period of uncertainty in the markets, the expenses investors pay are the only sure thing," he said. "As a long-time advocate for investors, we want to offer our clients a truly low-cost way to build a diversified portfolio."
The move comes after Larry Fink, Blackrock's CEO, indicated that
"This is not a temporary strategy, not in response to what someone said," Bettinger said.
He added that the fee cuts were approved by the trustees over the summer, although the announcement was made Friday.
Charles Schwab introduced its line of proprietary ETFs in November 2009. Today, it has fifteen funds and is one of the top ten retail ETF providers. As of Aug. 31, Schwab it managed around $7.2 billion in ETF assets.
The company also indicated there might be future fee cuts or additions of newer capabilities to the funds depending on how the markets behave. "We are not going to stop here," Bettinger said.
