[08/08/23] State Street Asks, How Low Can You Go?

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WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF ETF FILINGS, LAUNCHES & CLOSURES

State Street Global Advisors slashed fees on 10 of its index funds last week continuing an ongoing battle to provide the cheapest funds.

The ETFs, which have a total of nearly $80 billion in assets under management, primarily focus on retail investors. Its largest, institutional-investor-oriented ETFs, such as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), remained untouched.

This continues the ongoing fee war between the major exchange-traded fund providers. Before the cuts, all the major S&P 500 ETFs had exchange ratios of 0.03%, but State Street lowered the cost for its funds to 0.02%. The major fee-cutting spree got into gear in 2019 when the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VOO) first offered an expense ratio of just 0.03%.

If previous rounds of cuts are anything to go by, BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group are likely close behind State Street, so keep a lookout for new fee cuts.

If you’re interested in what is now the least expensive S&P 500 ETF, check out the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPLG) below.

Below is a roundup of the key developments in the ETF industry during the week ending Aug. 4, 2023:

New ETF Aims to Help Veterans Achieve Home Ownership: The fund’s goal is to lower veterans' borrowing costs by investing in loans made to vets.

BlackRock’s Push Into Active ETFs Continues With Large Cap Filing: The potential ETF comes after iShares’ two major active launches in May.

Odds & Ends: State Street Slashes Fees on 10 ETFs: SPLG is now the cheapest S&P 500 Index exchange-traded fund.

FEATURED FUND

SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPLG)

SPLG tracks a market cap-weighted index of 500 large- and mid-cap US companies selected by the S&P Committee.

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PODCAST

Why own many bonds when you can own one? That's the thesis behind the US Benchmark Series, a suite of single-Treasury-bond ETFs co-created by Alex Morris. In the latest episode of Exchange Traded Fridays, etf.com's Senior Analyst Sumit Roy sat down with Morris to discuss these novel bond ETFs, which now have more than $2 billion in assets under management, including over $1 billion in the US Treasury 3 Month Bill ETF (TBIL) alone. Listen Now

LISTEN ON: Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google | YouTube

VIDEO

Artificial intelligence is taking over the world, but how about stock picking? In the latest episode of Talk ETFs, Ryan Pannell, CEO and chair of Kaiju Worldwide, tells etf.com's Senior Analyst Sumit Roy why he thinks exchange-traded funds that employ AI can generate handsome rewards for investors. Watch Now | YouTube

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