In writing my blog, I've put together some very interesting data about the actual size, revenue-wise, of the U.S. ETF industry.
I started out with a discussion of the global target market funds Matt and Murray have been discussing, and the further I delved the more interesting the tangents got, so I'll drop those in right here, and then I'll continue on to my response panning various assertions of Mr. Hougan and Mr. Coleman.
There are 664 ETFs in our database (with loads of fully sortable data points downloadable to an Excel spreadsheet for those of you not acquainted). I split them right down the middle and looked at fund number 337 sorted by expense ratio. That fund would be the iShares UK (EWU) - and it has an expense ratio of...drum roll...57 basis points. You do that same list of 664 and take weight by average ER per dollar, and that number goes down significantly.
And I've had to spend a little time on this project.
But I put all the ETFs we have on a spreadsheet. I multiplied all the assets for each ETF by its respective expense ratio. Then I divided that number by the total assets under management number of all ETFs, and VOILA, I get the average-dollar-weighted expense ratio for the U.S. universe of ETFs.
And what is it?
35.4995 bps
Soon I realized - oh man, I'm on to something here with this spreadsheet. Give me a guess as to what the total revenues are in the ETF business (this is based on the $560 billion in assets in the 603 funds I had left after hacking out all the HOLDRs and funds that were missing ERs for whatever reason).
It's $1.994 BILLION. And here are the top money earners in the ETF business:
These are the top 50 ETFs sorted by revenue per fund. Bear in mind this is just a quick snapshot for the blog, so while I've cleaned the data a bit, I have not done it thoroughly, though this should give you a good idea of the lay of the land.
|
Fund Name |
Ticker |
Exp Ratio |
Assets ($MM) |
Revenue Per Fund |
|
iShares MSCI Emerg Mkts |
EEM |
0.74 |
26,031 |
192,629,400 |
|
iShares MSCI EAFE |
EFA |
0.35 |
46,850 |
163,975,000 |
|
streetTRACKS Gold Shares |
GLD |
0.40 |
19,967 |
79,866,400 |
|
SPDRs (S&P 500) |
SPY |
0.10 |
66,487 |
66,486,500 |
|
iShares Brazil |
EWZ |
0.74 |
7,522 |
55,662,800 |
|
iShares Japan |
EWJ |
0.57 |
8,162 |
46,522,260 |
|
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China |
FXI |
0.74 |
6,156 |
45,550,700 |
|
PowerShares QQQQ |
QQQQ |
0.20 |
16,422 |
32,843,600 |
|
ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 |
SDS |
0.95 |
2,923 |
27,763,750 |
|
iShares R1000 Growth |
IWF |
0.20 |
13,211 |
26,421,400 |
|
iPath DJ-AIG Commodity |
DJP |
0.75 |
3,348 |
25,109,250 |
|
iShares South Korea |
EWY |
0.74 |
3,323 |
24,593,160 |
|
PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund |
DBA |
0.91 |
2,699 |
24,561,810 |
|
iShares DJ Sel Dividend |
DVY |
0.40 |
5,950 |
23,799,200 |
|
iShares Taiwan |
EWT |
0.74 |
2,955 |
21,865,520 |
|
MidCap SPDR (S&P 400) |
MDY |
0.25 |
7,917 |
19,791,500 |
|
iShares MSCI ex-Japn |
EPP |
0.50 |
3,672 |
18,358,500 |
|
Vanguard Emerging Markets |
VWO |
0.30 |
6,098 |
18,294,000 |
|
UltraShort Financials ProShares |
SKF |
0.95 |
1,918 |
18,222,900 |
|
DB Commodity Index |
DBC |
0.83 |
2,146 |
17,809,310 |
|
iShares S&P 500 |
IVV |
0.10 |
17,539 |
17,539,100 |
|
iShares R1000 Value |
IWD |
0.20 |
8,633 |
17,265,400 |
|
iShares Lehman Aggregate |
AGG |
0.20 |
8,501 |
17,001,800 |
|
iShares Silver Trust |
SLV |
0.50 |
3,383 |
16,915,500 |
|
iShares Russell 2000 |
IWM |
0.20 |
8,382 |
16,764,800 |
|
iShares S&P Latin 40 |
ILF |
0.50 |
3,329 |
16,642,500 |
|
iShares EMU (Eurozone) |
EZU |
0.58 |
2,779 |
16,115,880 |
|
ProShares UltraShort QQQ |
QID |
0.95 |
1,610 |
15,296,900 |
|
Energy SPDR |
XLE |
0.26 |
5,784 |
15,037,360 |
|
iShares Lehman 1-3 Treas |
SHY |
0.15 |
9,893 |
14,840,100 |
|
DIAMONDS Trust |
DIA |
0.18 |
8,142 |
14,655,780 |
|
iShares S&P Euro-350 |
IEV |
0.60 |
2,413 |
14,480,400 |
|
Financial SPDR |
XLF |
0.26 |
5,440 |
14,144,520 |
|
iShares Hong Kong |
EWH |
0.57 |
2,437 |
13,888,620 |
|
PowerShares Water Resources |
PHO |
0.67 |
2,044 |
13,693,460 |
|
iShares Lehman TIPS Bond |
TIP |
0.20 |
6,386 |
12,772,600 |
|
Market Vectors Gold Miners |
GDX |
0.55 |
2,191 |
12,049,400 |
|
iShares GS Nat Res |
IGE |
0.50 |
2,339 |
11,692,500 |
|
iShares Germany Indx |
EWG |
0.57 |
1,966 |
11,203,350 |
|
iShares Canada Index |
EWC |
0.57 |
1,911 |
10,890,990 |
|
iShares DJ Real Estate |
IYR |
0.60 |
1,801 |
10,806,600 |
|
iShares S&P 500 Growth |
IVW |
0.18 |
5,873 |
10,571,220 |
|
ProShares UltraShort Russell 2000 |
TWM |
0.95 |
1,073 |
10,189,700 |
|
PShares WilderHill Clean Engy |
PBW |
0.71 |
1,400 |
9,939,290 |
|
Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF |
MOO |
0.65 |
1,521 |
9,885,200 |
|
iShares Singapore |
EWS |
0.57 |
1,729 |
9,856,440 |
|
ProShares Ultra QQQ |
QLD |
0.95 |
947 |
8,999,350 |
|
iShares S&P 400 MidCap |
IJH |
0.20 |
4,433 |
8,865,000 |
|
iShares R2000 Value |
IWN |
0.25 |
3,511 |
8,776,250 |
Ah - if I only had more time, I could do this sort of thing all day and be happy as a pig in...a very dirty pen.
And now on to my regularly scheduled blog attacking certain laughable assertions of the aforementioned Mssrs. Hougan and Coleman.