Vanguard Joins Crowd, Cuts Fees on Funds and ETFs
Vanguard Group, the largest U.S. mutual fund manager, reduced fees across dozens of its index-tracking stock and bond funds, following similar moves by competitors.
The fee reductions range from five-hundredths to one-hundredth of a percentage point per year. With many of the funds already charging low fees of less than 0.20 percent Of assets, some of the reductions were the equivalent of a 20 percent fee cut.
Intense competition among managers of index mutual and exchange-traded funds has led to sharp price cutting across the industry over the past few months. BlackRock, the largest ETF manager, and brokerage firm Charles Schwab both announced price cuts earlier this year.
At Vanguard's line of broad equity sector funds, such as the firm's Consumer Discretionary ETF and Health Care ETF, fees declined to 0.14 percent from 0.19 percent. Vanguard, based in Valley Forge, Penn., posted a full list of the fee cuts on the company's website.
Vanguard raised fees slightly on three actively managed equity mutual funds, including on both share classes of the $17.6 billion Vanguard International Growth Fund. Fees on the "Investor" share class rose to 0.49 percentage point from 0.47 while fees on the fund's "Admiral" class rose to 0.36 point from 0.34.
