Investment objective & strategy
As of June 27, 2025 · prospectusObjective. The funds goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of an index that measures the performance of small U.S. companies based on their fundamental size and weight.
Strategy. To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the RAFI Fundamental High Liquidity US Small 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 small company size segment by fundamental overall company scores (scores), which are created using as the universe the U.S. companies in the RAFI Global Equity Investable Universe (the parent universe). Securities are grouped in order of decreasing score and each company receives a weight based on its percentage of the total scores of the U.S. companies within the parent universe. The index is … To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the RAFI Fundamental High Liquidity US Small 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 small company size segment by fundamental overall company scores (scores), which are created using as the universe the U.S. companies in the RAFI Global Equity Investable Universe (the parent universe). Securities are grouped in order of decreasing score and each company receives a weight based on its percentage of the total scores of the U.S. companies within the parent universe. The index is comprised of the smallest U.S. companies by fundamental size. The bottom 12.5% of the companies by cumulative fundamental score are included in the index. The companies, and their respective weights, 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 method of calculating the components of the index is subject to change. It is the funds policy that, under normal circumstances, it will invest at least 90% of its net assets (including, for this purpose, any borrowings for investment purposes) in stocks included in the index. The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally seek to replicate the performance of the index by giving the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the investment adviser believes it is in the best interest of the fund, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), for tax considerations, or to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, the investment adviser may cause the funds weighting of a stock to be more or less than the indexs weighting of the stock. The fund may sell 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 10% of its net assets in securities not included in the index. The principal types of these investments include, but are not limited to, those that the investment adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the investment adviser anticipates will be added to the index or Index ownership The RAFI Fundamental High Liquidity US Small Index (the Index) is a service mark of RAFI Indices, LLC or its affiliates (collectively, RAFI) and has been licensed for use by Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. The intellectual and other property rights to the Index are owned by or licensed to RAFI. The Schwab Fundamental U.S. Small Company ETF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by RAFI, its agents or service providers (collectively, the RAFI Parties). The RAFI Parties: (i) make no representation or warranty as to the results to be obtained from the use of the Index or otherwise; and (ii) shall not be liable (whether in negligence or otherwise) to any person for any error in the Index. For full disclaimer, please see the funds statement of additional information. ? 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 seek returns on the funds otherwise uninvested cash assets to help it better track the index. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, including money market funds, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index. The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold more than 25% of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that the index is so concentrated.
Top holdings
As of Feb. 28, 2026 · N-PORT| Security | Ticker | Value | % of fund |
|---|---|---|---|
| LUMENTUM HOLDINGS INC | — | $106.40M | 1.08% |
| COMPASS INC - A | — | $61.63M | 0.63% |
| VIASAT INC | — | $46.31M | 0.47% |
| ECHOSTAR CORP CL A | — | $46.06M | 0.47% |
| MKS INSTRUMENTS INC | — | $45.22M | 0.46% |
| COHERENT CORP | — | $44.89M | 0.46% |
| TEREX CORP | — | $41.65M | 0.42% |
| COMFORT SYSTEMS USA INC | — | $40.38M | 0.41% |
| VICTORIA'S SECRET and CO | — | $40.20M | 0.41% |
| LIBERTY ENERGY INC CL A | — | $39.44M | 0.40% |
Portfolio moves
Nov 30, 2025 → Feb 28, 2026How many positions this fund opened, exited, grew, trimmed, or left unchanged between its two most recent N-PORT snapshots — net changes between point-in-time reports, not a trade log.
Similar funds
Funds whose portfolios most overlap this one, by weight| Fund | Overlap | Net exp. |
|---|---|---|
| Schwab Fundamental U.S. Small Company Index Fund · SFSNX | 94% | 0.25% |
| JNL/RAFI Fundamental U.S. Small Cap Fund | 52% | 0.32% |
| Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF · SCHA | 45% | 0.04% |
Advisers
| Firm | Role |
|---|---|
| Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. | Adviser |
Footnotes
- Expense ratio as of June 27, 2025, from the fund's prospectus.
- Net assets and holdings count as of February 28, 2026, from the fund's N-PORT filing.
- Total return for calendar year 2025, before tax and after fund expenses. Computed by compounding the twelve monthly total returns the fund reported in its SEC N-PORT filings for 2025 (the latest prospectus does not yet chart this year).
Machine-readable: JSON · Markdown. Programmatic access via the agent surface.