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What imagery comes to mind. State Street annually carting into Schwab a wheelbarrow full of GLD - that's all they've got, no cash.
More seriously, this highlights TANNTAAFL, and I'd avoid participating ETFs. Just as these days I look very closely at any NTF fund, especially if there is an institutional class that's accessible (with its one-time commission vs. higher ongoing fees).
There's no reason to expect an explicit line item showing this cost (which is why I think that all the sturm und drang over 12b-1 fees is overblown - the marketing fees will be extracted from the shareholders in any case): "these days, costs associated with sales and marketing of ETFs are wrapped up in overall expense ratios and not explicitly enumerated like they had to be back in the days when all the Select Sector SPDR funds were first brought to market."
That's IndexUniverse paraphrasing SSgA's head of ETFs, James Ross.
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More seriously, this highlights TANNTAAFL, and I'd avoid participating ETFs. Just as these days I look very closely at any NTF fund, especially if there is an institutional class that's accessible (with its one-time commission vs. higher ongoing fees).
There's no reason to expect an explicit line item showing this cost (which is why I think that all the sturm und drang over 12b-1 fees is overblown - the marketing fees will be extracted from the shareholders in any case): "these days, costs associated with sales and marketing of ETFs are wrapped up in overall expense ratios and not explicitly enumerated like they had to be back in the days when all the Select Sector SPDR funds were first brought to market."
That's IndexUniverse paraphrasing SSgA's head of ETFs, James Ross.