ETF investment strategies often involve finding exchange traded funds that are profitable but also low-cost. After all, a simple trading strategy is to make sure your expenses are low so your investments deliver more profits into your pockets — not some money manager in a corner office. With ETFs and mutual funds this is almost as important as picking a profitable fund, since nothing can be more frustrating than watching your retirement money grow slower than it should because of high fees.

Well this week, ETF provider and brokerage Charles Schwab (SCHW) has given retirement investors something to cheer about as it has significantly cut expense ratios on six of the company’s eight proprietary ETFs. This puts the funds’ expense rates among the lowest in their class.

Specifically, the six ETFs with lower expense ratios are

• Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB), with expenses dropped from 0.08% to 0.06%
• Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG), from 0.15% to 0.13%
• Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF (SCHV), from 0.15% to 0.13%
• Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF (SCHA), from 0.15% to 0.13%
• Schwab International Equity (SCHF), from 0.15% to 0.13%
• Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (SCHE) from 0.35% to 0.25%

Schwab’s ETFs are already very popular with investors, with the broker’s core funds topping $1 billion in assets recently. But it’s clear that Schwab wants to get more of the retail investor pie by cutting down costs and making sure that retirement investors keep more of their own cash instead of getting eaten alive by fees just for trading funds.

The move has undercut Vanguard, the ETF industry’s low-price leader, and gives Schwab the position of offering some of the lowest expenses out there right now.

What’s next for Schwab in its quest to connect with retail investors with this low cost model? Look for even more ETFs to be rolled out in the coming weeks and month that cover core asset classes, and perhaps even some boutique funds as Schwab looks to dig deeper into the ETF arena. Providers like Fidelity or iShares are offering literally three or four times the offerings of Schwab, so there’s plenty of room to grow. What’s more, Schwab could easily develop an ETF 401(k) program as it adds more core funds to its offerings and provides investors with the necessary foundation to invest their retirement money this way.

As of this writing, Jeff Reeves did not own a position in any of the stocks or funds mentioned here.