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Summary Prospectus | August 8, 2013 |
Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF
Ticker Symbol: FNDE
Before you invest, you may want to review the fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the fund and its risks. You can find the fund’s prospectus, Statement of Additional Information (SAI) and other information about the fund online at www.schwabetfs.com/prospectus. You can also obtain this information at no cost by calling 1-866-414-6349 or by sending an email request to orders@mysummaryprospectus.com. If you purchase or hold fund shares through a financial intermediary, the fund’s prospectus, SAI, and other information about the fund are available from your financial intermediary.
The fund’s prospectus and SAI, both dated August 8, 2013, include a more detailed discussion of fund investment policies and the risks associated with various fund investments. The prospectus and SAI are incorporated by reference into the summary prospectus, making them legally a part of the summary prospectus.
Investment objective
The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Russell Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index.
Fund fees and expenses
This table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. The table does not reflect brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares.
| Shareholder fees (fees paid directly from your investment) | ||||
| None | ||||
| Annual fund operating expenses
(expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment) |
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| Management fees | 0.46 | |||
| Other expenses | None | |||
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| Total annual fund operating expenses | 0.46 | |||
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| Example |
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those time periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same. This example does not reflect any brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares. Your actual costs may be higher or lower.
| Expenses on a $10,000 investment |
| 1 year | 3 years | |
| $47 | $148 |
| Portfolio turnover |
The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in the annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund’s performance. The fund is new and therefore does not have a historical portfolio turnover rate.
Principal investment strategies
To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the Russell Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index1 (the “Index”). The Index selects, ranks, and weights securities by fundamental measures of company size — adjusted sales, retained operating cash flow, and dividends plus buybacks — rather than market capitalization. The Index measures the performance of the large company size segment by fundamental overall company scores (“scores”), which are created using as the universe the companies included in the Russell Emerging Markets Index (the “Russell Index”). Securities are grouped in order of decreasing score and each company receives a weight based on the total weights of the companies within the Russell Index. Companies with weights above 87.5% make up the Index. The weights of the companies included in the Index are determined annually and are implemented using a partial quarterly reconstitution methodology in which the Index is split into four equal segments and each segment is rebalanced on a rolling quarterly basis. The Index is compiled and calculated by Russell Investments in conjunction with Research Affiliates LLC, and the method of calculating the components of the Index is subject to change.
It is the fund’s policy that, under normal circumstances, it will invest at least 80% of its net assets in stocks included in the Index, including depositary receipts representing securities of the Index; which may be in the form of American Depositary receipts (“ADRs”), Global Depositary receipts (“GDRs”) and European Depositary receipts (“EDRs”). The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund may sell
| 1 | Index ownership — “Russell Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index” is a joint trademark of Russell Investments (“Russell”) and Research Affiliates LLC (“RA”) and is used by the fund under license. “Research Affiliates” and “Fundamental Index” are trademarks of RA. Subject to RA’s intellectual property rights in certain content, Russell is the owner of all copyrights related to the Russell Fundamental Indexes. Russell is the owner of the trademarks and copyrights related to the Russell Indexes. Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Russell or RA, and Russell and RA do not make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in shares of the fund. |
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securities that are represented in the Index in anticipation of their removal from the Index, or buy securities that are not yet represented in the Index in anticipation of their addition to the Index.
Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 20% of its net assets in securities not included in the Index. The principal types of these investments include those that the Adviser believes will help the fund track the Index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the Index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the Index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) derivatives, principally futures contracts. The fund may use futures contracts and other derivatives primarily to (a) seek returns on the fund’s otherwise uninvested cash assets to help it better track the Index and (b) obtain exposure substantially similar to that provided by certain securities included in the Index which the fund may not be able to purchase or hold directly due to restrictions and/or regulations on investments in the applicable local markets. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index. The fund does not hedge its exposure to foreign currencies.
Because it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the stocks in the Index, the Adviser seeks to track the total return of the Index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of Index securities which, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the Index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including performance attributes, tax considerations, capitalization, dividend yield, price/earnings ratio, industry factors, risk factors and other characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the Index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective. The fund generally expects that its industry weightings, dividend yield and price/earnings ratio will be similar to those of the Index.
The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that the Index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.
The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of the Index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the Index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with the Index, including the number of Index securities held by the fund as part of the sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and the Index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the Index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the Index.
Principal risks
The fund is subject to risks, any of which could cause an investor to lose money. The fund’s principal risks include:
Market Risk. Stock markets rise and fall daily. As with any investment whose performance is tied to these markets, the value of your investment in the fund will fluctuate, which means that you could lose money.
Investment Style Risk. The fund is not actively managed. Therefore, the fund follows the securities included in the index during upturns as well as downturns. Because of its indexing strategy, the fund does not take steps to reduce market exposure or to lessen the effects of a declining market. In addition, because of the fund’s expenses, the fund’s performance may be below that of the index.
Equity Risk. The prices of equity securities rise and fall daily. These price movements may result from factors affecting individual companies, industries or the securities market as a whole. In addition, equity markets tend to move in cycles, which may cause stock prices to fall over short or extended periods of time.
Large-Cap Risk. Large-cap stocks tend to go in and out of favor based on market and economic conditions. During a period when large-cap U.S. stocks fall behind other types of investments — small-cap stocks, for instance — the fund’s large-cap holdings could reduce performance.
Foreign Investment Risk. The fund’s investments in securities of foreign issuers may involve certain risks that are greater than those associated with investments in securities of U.S. issuers. These include risks of adverse changes in foreign economic, political, regulatory and other conditions; changes in currency exchange rates or exchange control regulations (including limitations on currency movements and exchanges); differing accounting, auditing, financial reporting and legal standards and practices; differing securities market structures; and higher transaction costs. These risks may be heightened in connection with investments in emerging markets. Foreign securities also include ADRs, GDRs, and EDRs, which are receipts issued by U.S. and foreign banks that represent shares of foreign-based corporations. Investment in ADRs, GDRs and EDRs may be less liquid than the underlying shares in their primary trading market and GDRs, many of which are issued by companies in emerging markets, may be more volatile. To the extent the fund’s investments in a single country or a limited number of countries represent a larger percentage of the fund’s assets, the fund’s performance may be adversely affected by the economic, political and social conditions in those countries and it may be subject to increased price volatility.
Emerging Markets Risk. Emerging market countries may be more likely to experience political turmoil or rapid changes in market or economic conditions than more developed countries. Such countries often have less uniformity in accounting and reporting requirements and greater risk associated with the custody of securities. In addition, the financial stability of issuers (including governments) in emerging market countries may be more precarious than in other countries. As a result, there will tend to be an increased risk of price volatility associated with the fund’s investments in emerging market countries, and, at times, it may be difficult to value such investments.
| Summary Prospectus August 8, 2013 | 2 of 4 | Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF |
Sampling Index Tracking Risk. The fund may not fully replicate the index and may hold securities not included in the index. As a result, the fund is subject to the risk that the adviser’s investment management strategy, the implementation of which is subject to a number of constraints, may not produce the intended results. Because the fund utilizes a sampling approach it may not track the return of the index as well as it would if the fund purchased all of the securities in its benchmark index.
Tracking Error Risk. As an index fund, the fund seeks to track the performance of its benchmark index, although it may not be successful in doing so. The divergence between the performance of the fund and its benchmark index, positive or negative, is called “tracking error.” Tracking error can be caused by many factors and it may be significant.
Derivatives Risk. The fund’s use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional investments and could cause the fund to lose more than the principal amount invested. In addition, investments in derivatives may involve leverage, which means a small percentage of assets invested in derivatives can have a disproportionately larger impact on the fund.
Liquidity Risk. A particular investment may be difficult to purchase or sell. The fund may be unable to sell a security at an advantageous time or price.
Securities Lending Risk. Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in the collateral or delay in recovery of the collateral if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Concentration Risk. To the extent that the fund’s or the index’s portfolio is concentrated in the securities of issuers in a particular market, industry, group of industries, sector or asset class, the fund may be adversely affected by the performance of those securities, may be subject to increased price volatility and may be more susceptible to adverse economic, market, political or regulatory occurrences affecting that market, industry, group of industries, sector or asset class.
Market Trading Risk. Although fund shares are listed on national securities exchanges, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for fund shares will develop or be maintained. If an active market is not maintained, investors may find it difficult to buy or sell fund shares.
Shares of the Fund May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV. Fund shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of the shares of the fund will approximate the fund’s net asset value (NAV), there may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. You may pay more than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market.
Lack of Governmental Insurance or Guarantee. An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
For more information on the risks of investing in the fund please see the “Fund details” section in the prospectus.
Performance
The fund is new and therefore does not have a performance history. Once the fund has completed a full calendar year of operations a bar chart and table will be included that will provide some indication of the risks of investing in the fund by showing the variability of the fund’s returns and comparing the fund’s performance to the index.
Investment adviser
Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc.
Portfolio managers
Agnes Hong, CFA, Managing Director and Head of Passive Equity Strategies, is responsible for the day-to-day co-management of the fund. She has managed the fund since inception.
Chuck Craig, CFA, Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager, is responsible for the day-to-day co-management of the fund. He has managed the fund since inception.
Jane Qin, Portfolio Manager, is responsible for the day-to-day co-management of the fund. She has managed the fund since inception.
Purchase and sale of fund shares
The fund issues and redeems shares at its NAV only in large blocks of shares, typically 100,000 shares or more (“Creation Units”). These transactions are usually in exchange for a basket of securities included in the index and/or an amount of cash. As a practical matter, only institutions or large investors purchase or redeem Creation Units. Except when aggregated in Creation Units, shares of the fund are not redeemable securities.
Individual shares of the fund trade on national securities exchanges and elsewhere during the trading day and can only be bought and sold at market prices throughout the trading day through a broker-dealer. Because fund shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
Tax information
Dividends and capital gains distributions received from the fund will generally be taxable as ordinary income or capital gains, unless you are investing through an IRA, 401(k) or other tax-advantaged account.
| 3 of 4 | Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF |
| REG75710-00 00101458 | Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF; Ticker Symbol: FNDE |
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| Summary Prospectus August 8, 2013 | 4 of 4 | Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company Index ETF |