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October 02, 2012 at 09:24 AM
To cut costs for investors, Vanguard plans to transition 22 funds, many of which have an ETF share class, to new indexes starting in 2013, the fund giant said Tuesday.
The changes entail moving six international stock index funds and 16 U.S. stock and balanced index funds with about $537 billion in assets from MSCI benchmarks to those constructed by FTSE and the University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP).
“The indexes from FTSE and CRSP are well constructed, offer comprehensive coverage of their respective markets, and meet Vanguard’s ‘best practice’ standards for market benchmarks,” said Vanguard Chief Investment Officer Gus Sauter, in a press release. “Equally important, and with our clients’ best interests in mind, we negotiated licensing agreements for these benchmarks that we expect will enable us to deliver significant value to our index fund and ETF shareholders and lower expense ratios over time.”
According to the fund giant, index licensing fees have represented a growing portion of expenses paid by investors to own index funds and ETFs. Vanguard’s long-term agreements with FTSE and CRSP should “provide cost certainty going forward with these two index providers,” Sauter (left) says.
The move makes sense for both investors and for Vanguard, experts note.
“Vanguard is the third-largest ETF provider, after iShares and State Street,” said Todd Rosenbluth, and ETF analyst with S&P Capital IQ, in an interview with AdvisorOne. “It is gaining market share this year–and it is the cheapest of the three. By getting even cheaper, it has the potential to gain more market share.”
(Two weeks ago, Charles Schwab announced it was cutting the operating expense ratios on all of its proprietary ETFs.)
Six Vanguard international index funds with total assets of $170 billion will transition to benchmarks in the FTSE Global Equity Index Series, including the $67 billion Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund. This fund’s ETF shares (VWO) are currently the world’s largest emerging markets ETF.
Sixteen Vanguard stock and balanced index funds, with total assets of $367 billion, will move to the CRSP benchmarks, including Vanguard’s largest index fund, the $197-billion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, which has ETF shares (VTI).
