The Newer, Cheaper S&P 500 ETF
Thursday, September 9th, 2010Michael Johnston submits:
It’s been a long time coming, but an S&P 50 ETF from Vanguard is finally here. The Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based firm rolled out the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) on Thursday, nearly 35 years after the company introduced an S&P 500 index mutual fund that laid the groundwork for the rise of indexing as an investment strategy. Earlier this decade Vanguard got caught up in a legal dispute with S&P over the licensing of the index, leading the company to build its line of ETFs around indexes maintained by MSCI–a relative unknown in the industry at the time.
It shouldn’t be surprising to too many investors that Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF will come in with a lower expense ratio than it’s most direct competitors; VOO will charge 0.06%, or three basis points less than the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) and S&P 500 Index Fund (IVV). The existing S&P 500 ETFs from State Street and iShares have aggregate assets of approximately $80 billion. VOO will join Schwab’s U.S. Broad Stock Market ETF (SCHB) as the cheapest ETF on the market. Vanguard and Schwab have been the two firms primarily responsible for an escalation of price wars in the ETF industry over the last year; both have cut management fees on existing funds and introduced new products that offer lower expense ratios than their most direct competitors.
