$100 billion in assets by December 2010? In a best-case scenario for Schwab, they’ll be closer to $10 billion.

More realistic would be something like $5 billion. But let’s put the over/under at $10 billion by 12/31/2009 and put something interesting on the line, shall we?

Seriously. One-hundred billion would make Schwab the third-largest ETF provider in the world at current levels, surging past ProShares, PowerShares and Vanguard and nipping at the heels of State Street Global Investors. Having a built-in distribution system is a good thing, but it isn’t THAT much of a good thing.

And I’ll say this: They better get busy if they’re even going to reach $10 billion. We’re one week into the project and they’re sitting on a combined $17 million spread among four products.

Obviously, one week is not a legitimate test. My point is that Schwab moving into ETFs isn’t like flipping a switch. The bigger impact

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Schwab’s new ETFs solve one critical problem in the ETF market, but they won’t take over the world. At least not for a while.

I’ve been thinking about the Schwab ETF launch all week, trying to figure out if it’s a game-changing event or an overblown bit of marketing. I think it’s a bit of both.

The big news, of course, is that Schwab is entering the ETF market and breaking new ground on fees. It has launched four ETFs that offer the lowest expense ratios in the world: As low as 0.08 percent for U.S. broad market exposure. The new Schwab Total Market ETF (NYSEArca: SCHB) and Schwab Large Cap Equity ETF (NYSEArca: SCHX) are now the lowest-cost mutual funds available to retail investors.

What’s more, Schwab is offering zero commissions for Schwab customers who buy or sell the ETFs.

That’s a big deal. Commissions are a huge hurdle

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Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com

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Tuesday October 27, 2009

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

TAXS, SCHW, PSFT, DISH, PWRM, MMM, CSRH, WFC, CVAT, JPM, AQNM

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TAXS, TaxMasters Inc., TAXS.OB

TAXS‘ commitment to helping taxpayers in the United States regain compliance with The Internal Revenue Service IRS.

TAXS finalized plans this week to take advantage of the expected surge in sales that begins for the IRS tax relief industry in October and builds through April of the following year. TAXS reported sales for the first six months in 2009 of $18,758,000, an increase of $12,348,000 or 193 percent, over 2008 sales for the same period of $6,410,000. TAXS used this growth

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The following is an option strategy brought forth by IVolatility.com. I actually use their site to look at IV charts for options. The strategy they are suggesting is a Bullish Call Ratio Backspread and a Short Put on SLW, a silver mining company. The Silver Story In IVolatility Trading Digest™ Volume 9, Issue 32, The Season for Gold, dated August 17, 2009 and then again, in IVolatility Trading Digest™ Volume 9, Issue 33, Seasonal Gold 2.0, dated August 24, 2009 we suggested new positions in the precious metals sector using silver and gold. Since they have both quickly moved up to their previous resistance highs we offer some additional background information and another idea for a potential upside breakout. Gold (cash) at 994.40 is within 12.03 of testing the previous high at 1006.43 made on February 20, ...

FINRA ups margin limits in effort to curtail volatility in retail accounts of leveraged exchange-traded products.

 

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority  is imposing increased margin limits on purchases of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds in an attempt to curtail the volatility such products impose on retail investors. Starting on Dec. 1, the maintenance margin requirement for leveraged long- and short-ETFs will be increased by a percentage commensurate with the leverage employed by the ETF.

This amount will not be allowed to exceed 100% of the value of the ETF. For example, on an ETF leveraged by 200%, the new margin maintenance requirement will be 75% of the value of the ETF. FINRA also is increasing the maintenance margin requirements for listed and over the-counter uncovered options on leveraged ETFs. Currently, the maintenance margin requirement for leveraged long ETFs is 25%, while the maintenance margin requirement

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The Top 10 Reasons Why the China Sell Off Will Continue

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist

How much are you willing to pay for good advice? And by “good,” I mean profitable.

A couple of hundred bucks? A couple of thousand?

Before you answer, consider this: Two weeks ago, I alerted members of The Oxford Club to the precarious position of Chinese equities. As I put it, “China could be on a crash course with a correction.”

A contrarian stance, no doubt. But vindication came quickly.

The following Monday, Chinese stocks (represented by the Shanghai Composite Index) suffered a 5.8% drop – the worst single-day decline of the year. Two days later, they got dented by another 4.3%.

Unabashed China bulls will point out that the Shanghai index promptly recovered. But then this week hit…

Rally Rebuffed: Chinese Stocks Take Another Tumble

On Monday, the

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[Editor's Note: The global economic recovery will create an estimated $300 trillion worth of global-investing-profit opportunities. To find out how to capitalize and profit, you just need to know where to look. And for that, you need a guide. As part of a new report, Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald details " the $300 trillion global recovery that nobody's talking about" - as well as the six "lifetime" profit playsthis powerful global money wave will open up to those who understand what's really playing out on the global investing stage right now. To read this report, please click here.]

When the “Great Crash” came in 1929, it came in October. So, too, did the infamous “Crash of ‘87.” And last year, during a tortuous October that led to even lower lows in the months to come, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index …

China is Investing Billions in Renewable Energy One firm has already built China’s largest wind turbine manufacturing factory. And it’s working with the Chinese Science Academy to develop new wind, solar, and geothermal technologies… for which it will own 70% of the rights. But this company’s business reaches far beyond the Chinese border, with operations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. It’s first quarter net income increased by 294% over a year ago. Click here for the full report.

Martin Hutchinson
Contributing Editor
Money Morning

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) disclosed recently that it had 46 “$100 million trading days” in the second quarter of 2009. That was a record number, even for one of the biggest players on Wall Street.

When the U.S. economy is facing collapse and merger and acquisition volume is way down, it seems odd that investment banks like Goldman …

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced this morning that it has commenced Factual Stock Report coverage on Savoy Energy Corporation. The stock report provides factual research coverage to a wide investor audience of Buy and Sell-side investors, helping them understand Savoy’s fundamentals and business prospects.

Savoy Energy Corp. focuses its business operations on performing recompletion and workover activities on wells in Texas. The company re-enters, recompletes, extracts oil from, and sells oil from previously drilled wells in the United States. Currently, it holds leases on and is producing oil from four wells: Ali-O No.1, Rozella Kifer, Zavadil No.1, and Wright, all located in the state of Texas. Savoy plans to continue its workover efforts on these wells, and desires to duplicate its efforts with other wells.

With the assistance of a petroleum consulting firm, Savoy plans to locate and evaluate a number of

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Another of our favorite underground investors Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners is sounding the alarm on US Treasurys. He is also pessimistic about retail investors beating the market on their own.

This from a recent interview with Steve Forbes, which you can watch in full on Forbes.com

But then even buying Treasuries, you have the risk of under-performing inflation at today’s rate that you’re getting on Treasuries, right? Certainly with today’s yield, relative to the stock market, I would think Treasuries would be a terrible investment. In fact, we’re short an ETF that owns 20-year Treasuries because we think rates are going up. My point, though, is you can do one of two things.

Generally speaking, to the extent that you can, you can own bonds and stocks, and then within stocks you can pick stocks on your own or you can own a mutual fund or an index fund. I think that

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