| 13 July 2009

This week’s Barron’s cover story gives us a peek inside Schwab’s aggressive and progressive plans for the coming months and years. The plan, it seems, is to expect continued sluggishness in the economy and price accordingly.

A couple highlights: expense ratios have been cut dramatically to below 0.10% for some of the company’s flagship mutual funds while at the same time cutting minimums to invest, giving Schwab “a nice little pop” in new accounts and funds. The company has filed for approval from the SEC to roll out its own proprietary brand of ETFs in the coming months.

According to the article, Schwab pulled in $113 billion in new money market funds in 2008, or more than Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, E*TRADE, Citigroup and TD Ameritrade combined.