| 12 April 2010

The Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) today announced that it has surpassed the $1 billion mark in assets under management for its new line of Schwab-branded and managed ETFs.

The new line of ETFs, which was first announced back in July, was launched at a time when the firm was losing assets to rivals E*TRADE (ETFC) and TD Ameritrade (AMTD). Assets have since bounced back for the firm. In February the firm reported net new assets of $7.9 billion, a 37% gain over year-ago figures.

Is a $1 billion delta over the course of the last five months (since the ETFs launched) changing the business? Probably not in significant ways realtive to the total amount of assets they're able to gain. The ETF asset inflows only represents an average of about $200 million, or roughly 2.5% of their monthly gain. But the gain comes at time when the company needs it and the marketing push alone is enough to drive interests and assets.

According to IndexUniverse.com, the ETF market saw a total of $20 billion in net new inflows in March. This means that the Schwab ETFs represent about 1% of the total market, in terms of net inflow. By comparison, State Street Global Advisors led the way in March with $8.26 billion in new investments.

We'll keep a close eye on the firm's earnings release, which we expect to occur on Thursday.