Here is what’s driving ‘zero-fee ETFs’

Article Excerpt

ETF fees have continued to drop over the past several years as fund providers increase their efforts to attract ETF investors in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Fund investors looking for an ETF focused on Canadian stocks can now buy units of a fund holding the country’s top 60 companies by market cap for an MER as low as 0.03%. In the U.S., Fidelity recently cut its fees on selected index funds to zero. For example, the Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund covers U.S. equities and the Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund focuses on the rest of the developed world. There are three main factors driving the move to lower fees: First, the movement of assets away from the massive pool of expensive and sometimes poor-performing mutual funds has just started—asset managers want to attract ETF assets so that they can build scale and compete effectively. Profits will come later. Second, fund providers offer “zero fees” only on select products where there are several…