Odds & Ends: State Street Slashes Fees on 10 ETFs
SPLG is now the cheapest S&P 500 Index exchange-traded fund.
State Street Global Advisors slashed fees on 10 of its ETFs that hold a total of nearly $80 billion in assets under management.
While the funds make up only about 7% of the $1.1 trillion the firm manages across 137 ETFs, it includes multiple popular index funds. The largest, the $20 billion SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPLG), is now the least expensive S&P 500 index ETF, with an expense ratio of 0.02%, compared to 0.03% for similar funds at BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group.
The fee cuts mark a major new salvo in the ongoing price war in the ETF world. S&P 500 ETFs first reached 0.03% expense ratios in 2019, when a series of price cuts pushed Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF down to that level, soon followed by BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors since then.
There’s no news yet on whether the other major firms will follow, but based on previous fee cuts, they are likely not far behind.
Launches
Monday:
- JPMorgan Equity Focus ETF (JPEF)
- JPMorgan Limited Duration Bond ETF (JPLD)
Tuesday:
- AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer10 Aug ETF (AUGT)
- AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer20 Aug ETF (AUGW)
- Astoria US Quality Kings ETF (ROE)
Wednesday: Academy Veteran Impact ETF (VETZ)
Thursday:
- First Trust Intermediate Duration Investment Grade Corporate ETF (FIIG)
- DGA Absolute Return ETF (HF)
- First Trust Intermediate Government Opportunities ETF (MGOV)
Closures
Monday:
Thursday:
ETF Changes
Monday: The following funds had expense ratio changes:
- AlphaMark Actively Managed Small Cap ETF (SMCP) from 1.21% to 0.90%
- Optimize AI Smart Sentiment Event-Driven ETF (OAIE) from 1.00% to 1.03%
- AXS Astoria Inflation Sensitive ETF (PPI) from 0.75% to 0.76%
- AXS Brendan Wood TopGun Index ETF (TGN) from 0.98% to 1.73%
Tuesday:
The Franklin FTSE Europe Hedged ETF (FLEH) changed its name to the Franklin FTSE Eurozone ETF (FLEU) and changed its underlying index from FTSE Developed Europe RIC Capped Hedged to USD Index to the FTSE Developed Eurozone Index.
The following funds changed their expense ratio on Tuesday:
- ClearBridge Focus Value ESG ETF (CFCV) from 0.49% to 0.50%
- SPDR Portfolio Developed World ex-US ETF (SPDW) from 0.04% to 0.03%
- SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets ETF (SPEM) from 0.11% to 0.07%
- SPDR Portfolio Europe ETF (SPEU) from 0.09% to 0.07%
- SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF (SPHY) from 0.10% to 0.05%
- SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ET (SPLG) from 0.03% to 0.02%
- SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF (SPMD) from 0.05% to 0.03%
- SPDR Portfolio S&P 600 Small Cap ETF (SPSM) from 0.05% to 0.03%
- SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF (SPTI) from 0.06% to 0.03%
- SPDR Portfolio Long Term Treasury ETF (SPTL) from 0.06% to 0.03%
- SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF (SPTS) from 0.06% to 0.03%
- Royce Quant Small‑Cap Quality Value ETF (SQLV) from 0.61% to 0.60%