Vanguard Lowers Fees On Six ETFs

In the latest move in the growing ETF price war, Vanguard, the third-largest U.S. ETF issuer, announced it is paring fees on six of its ETFs, including the popular Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE: VWO). VWO, the world's largest emerging markets ETF by assets, will see its expense ratio reduced to 0.22% from 0.27%, making it even cheaper than the Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE: SCHE), which features an expense ratio of 0.25%. VWO has been able to steadily pilfer assets from the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (NYSE: EEM) by offering lower fees. The Vanguard MSCI Pacific ETF (NYSE: VPL) will see its expense cut to 0.14% from 0.16% as will the Vanguard MSCI European ETF (NYSE: VGK). Vanguard's Total World Stock ETF (NYSE: VT) will see its fees lowered to 0.25% from 0.3%. The FTSE All-World ex-U.S. Index (NYSE: VEU) goes to 0.22% from 0.25% and the FTSE All-World ex-U.S. Small Cap (NYSE: VSS) will have an expense ratio of 0.33% down from 0.4%. The new expense ratio for VSS also undercuts the comparable Schwab fund, the Schwab International Small Cap Equity ETF (NYSE: SCHC), which has expenses of 0.35%. Vanguard had total ETF assets of $154.56 billion as of Feb. 24, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse.com.