Vanguard Taking The Ax to Fees On 10 Sector ETFs

Vanguard, the third-largest U.S. ETF issuer, is taking the ax to expense ratios on ten of its popular sector ETFs, a move that will intensify the firn's rivalry with the SPDRs family of sector funds. The 10 Vanguard ETFs will mostly see their expense ratios pared to 0.19% from 0.24%. That undercuts the comparable by SPDR ETFs by one basis point. Most of the SPDRs sector ETFs currently have expense ratios of 0.2%. Vanguard announced the changes in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, but the funds still show expense ratios of 0.24% on Vanguard's Web site. The ETFs undergoing the changes are the Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF VCR, Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF VDC, Vanguard Energy ETF VDE, Vanguard Health Care ETF VHT, Vanguard Industrials ETF VIS, Vanguard Information Technology ETF VGT, Vanguard Materials ETF VAW, Vanguard Telecommunication Services ETF VOX and the Vanguard Utilities ETF VPU. The Vanguard Financials ETF VFH will see its fees cut to 0.23% from 0.27%, but the new expense ratio is still above the 0.2% offered by the Financial Select Sector SPDR XLF. Vanguard had 64 ETFs with $173.3 billion in assets under management at the end of November, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.