Investment Objective
The Portfolio seeks to track the total return of the S&P 500 Index.
Investment Strategy
The Portfolio invests substantially all its assets in the Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund. To pursue its goal, the Fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the S&P 500 Index. It is the Fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 80% of its net assets (including, for this purpose, any borrowings for investment purposes) in these stocks; typically, the actual percentage is considerably higher. The Fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy.
The Fund generally will 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 Fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s 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.
The S&P 500 Index includes the stocks of 500 leading U.S. publicly traded companies from a broad range of industries. Standard & Poor’s, the company that maintains the index, uses a variety of measures to determine which stocks are listed in the index. Each stock is represented in the index in proportion to its float-adjusted market capitalization.
The Fund may invest in derivatives, principally futures contracts, and lend its securities to minimize the gap in performance that naturally exists between any index fund and its corresponding index. This gap occurs mainly because, unlike the index, the Fund incurs expenses and must keep a small portion of its assets in cash for business operations. By using futures, the Fund potentially can offset a portion of the gap attributable to its cash holdings. In addition, any income realized through securities lending may help reduce the portion of the gap attributable to expenses.
The Fund may concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in an industry or group of industries to the extent that the index the Fund is designed to track is also so concentrated.
Investment Risks
Concentration Risk, Derivatives Risk, Equity Risk, Investment Style Risk, Large-Cap Company Risk, Liquidity Risk, Market Capitalization Risk, Market Risk, Securities Lending Risk, and Tracking Error Risk. These risks are discussed under Schwab Investment Risks, per the disclosure booklet.
