A number of factors determine whether an expense ratio is considered high or low. A good expense ratio, from the investor's viewpoint, is around 0.5% to 0.75% for an actively managed portfolio. An expense ratio greater than 1.5% is considered high.
The expense ratio is typically expressed as a percentage of a fund's average net assets and can include various operational costs and annual fees. For example, if you invest $10,000 in an ETF with an expense ratio of 0.04%, you'll pay $4 to the fund's manager this year.
What is a good expense ratio? Typically, ETFs have lower expense ratios than mutual funds. Generally, low-cost equity ETFs will have a net expense ratio of no more than 0.25%. Low-cost equity mutual funds will have expense ratios of 0.5% or lower.
An expense ratio of 0.2%, for example, means that for every $1,000 you invest in a fund, you'll be paying $2 annually in operating expenses. These funds are taken out of your expenses over time, so you won't be able to avoid paying them.
Ratios above 1.5% are considered high. In this article, we explore the meaning of the expense ratio, its formula, how it works, and its impact on returns with relevant examples.
Typically, any expense ratio higher than 1 percent is high and should be avoided. Over an investing career, a low expense ratio could easily save you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. And that's real money for you and your retirement.
Low expense ratio: VOO has an expense ratio of 0.03%, one of the lowest among S&P 500 ETFs. This is cost-effective as the value of the investment grows over time.
An OER is the percentage of fund assets taken out annually to cover fund expenses. For example, if you have $10,000 in an ETF with a 0.25% expense ratio, you're paying about $25 per year in expenses.
SPY is more expensive with a Total Expense Ratio (TER) of 0.0945%, versus 0.03% for VOO. SPY is up 28.31% year-to-date (YTD) with +$7.13B in YTD flows. VOO performs better with 28.36% YTD performance, and +$103.99B in YTD flows.
Fund B has an expense ratio of 0.75%. Again, this tells us that it is likely an actively managed fund and that we pay $75 for every $10,000 we invest. While that doesn't sound like a lot, it can add up over the course of 30 years, or once you have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested.
What is the expense ratio formula? In real life, that means if the fund spends $100,000 a year on operating costs and has $10 million in assets, its expense ratio would be 0.01, or 1%. Sometimes expense ratios are expressed as basis points, or bps.
For most individual investors, ETFs represent an ideal type of asset with which to build a diversified portfolio. In addition, ETFs tend to have much lower expense ratios compared to actively managed funds, can be more tax-efficient, and offer the option to immediately reinvest dividends.
Generally considered cost-efficient if the expense ratio is below 0.2%, with some options as low as 0.03%. Actively managed funds. Acceptable expense ratios are typically under 1%, though they tend to be higher due to active stock selection and management costs.
50% of your net income should go towards living expenses and essentials (Needs), 20% of your net income should go towards debt reduction and savings (Debt Reduction and Savings), and 30% of your net income should go towards discretionary spending (Wants).
For a typical 401(k) plan, the expense ratio should be no higher than 2% and more likely in the 1.0% to 1.5% range. The lower the expense ratio the better, with higher fees eating into profits.
The 50% rule in real estate says that investors should expect a property's operating expenses to be roughly 50% of its gross income. This is useful for estimating potential cash flow from a rental property, but it's not always foolproof.
If the fund had a 3-year annualized pre-tax return of 10%, an investor would have taken home roughly 8% on an after-tax basis. Tax cost ratios typically fall within the range of 0-5%. A 0% tax cost ratio means the fund had no taxable distributions, while a 5% ratio suggests the fund was less tax efficient.
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF has had a total return of 257% over the past decade. Another huge benefit of this particular ETF is that it has a very low expense-ratio fee of just 0.03%. That means if you invest $1,000, you'll pay just $0.30 in fees, and $10,000 invested in the fund will cost you only $3.
Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund and Motilal Oswal Small Cap Fund gave 50.23% and 49.29% returns respectively in the mentioned period. Motilal Oswal Large & Midcap Fund offered 48.84% return in the same time period. HDFC Defence Fund, the only active fund based on defence sector, delivered 48.75% return in 2024.
Expense ratios of above 1.5% are very high and can quickly eat into your returns. Most actively managed mutual funds have expense ratios ranging from 0.5% to 1.5%, whereas most passively managed funds are in the range of 0.2% to 0.5%.
The SPY comes with an 0.09% expense ratio, which is the ETF equivalent of fund management fees. An investor who invests $100,000 into the SPY ETF must pay $90 as management fees.