The Latest Shot in the ETF Price Wars
High investing costs are the biggest enemy that investors face. Whether it's a commission you have to pay to buy shares, or an expense ratio that gets taken automatically from your assets, every dollar that goes toward exchange-traded fund fees is one less dollar for you to spend in retirement.
Fortunately for investors, ETF providers have been fighting each other on the price front, and expense ratios have come down so far that the idea of a zero-cost ETF doesn't seem all that outlandish. ETFs have kept drawing assets as the bull market continues, and companies like BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), State Street (NYSE: STT), Vanguard, and Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) all want to find ways to distinguish their fund offerings and draw customers. The latest move from State Street took the march toward 0.00% one step further.
State Street Global Advisors runs the popular SPDR family of ETFs, including the groundbreaking SPDR S&P 500 that helped to ignite the ETF revolution. State Street is the third-largest ETF provider behind BlackRock and Vanguard, and it wanted to make a competitive effort to get its market share back to the No. 2 spot.
Source: Fool.com