ETFs also incur an annual management cost, which is generally included in the unit price (the current market price of units in the fund). The management cost includes all relevant fees and costs associated with managing the ETF, including custodian fees, accounting fees, audit fees and index licence fees.
Expense ratios can range from as low as 0.03% for some passively managed ETFs to over 1% for actively managed or specialized ETFs. Factoring in 0.5% to 0.75% for actively managed fees is considered to be around the average.
An ETF's expense ratio covers the fund's total annual operating expenses, which include management, marketing, and distribution fees. Also included may be fees for accounting, administration, recordkeeping, custodial services, and legal services.
Vanguard Brokerage reserves the right to change the non-Vanguard ETFs included in these offers at any time. All ETFs are subject to management fees and expenses; refer to each ETF's prospectus for more information. All stock and ETF sales are subject to a securities transaction fee.
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.
Understanding a No-Fee ETF
No-fee ETFs can also make money by lending stock or offering lower interest on cash funds.
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.
The administrative costs of managing ETFs are commonly lower than those for mutual funds. ETFs keep their administrative and operational expenses down through market-based trading. Because ETFs are bought and sold on the open market, the sale of shares from one investor to another does not affect the fund.
Instead, the fees and costs are reflected in the daily price of the ETF. Management fees are not deducted on one specific date each year. Each day, a proportion of the total annual management fee is accrued and then deducted from the fund assets on periodic (e.g. monthly) basis.
Traders and investors can make money from an ETF by selling it at a higher price than what they bought it for. Investors could also receive dividends if they own an ETF that tracks dividend stocks. ETF providers make money mainly from the expense ratio of the funds they manage, as well as through transaction costs.
The Rule of 72 is a simple way to estimate how long it will take your investments to double by dividing 72 by your expected annual return rate. Higher-risk investments like stocks have historically doubled money faster (around seven years) compared with lower-risk options like bonds (around 12 years).
A good rule of thumb is to not invest in any fund with an expense ratio higher than 1% since many ETFs have expense ratios that are much lower. Also, ETFs tend to be passively managed, which keeps the management fee low.
Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ)
The Invesco QQQ Trust is a go-to ETF that tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index. It's outperformed the S&P 500 in seven out of the last 10 years, all for a reasonable 0.2% expense ratio. It slightly trails the S&P's one-year return, but only slightly, and it thrashed the S&P in full-year 2023.
ETFs can be a great investment for long-term investors and those with shorter-term time horizons. They can be especially valuable to beginning investors. That's because they won't require the time, effort, and experience needed to research individual stocks.
Like mutual funds, ETFs offer market participants ownership in a professionally managed, diversified portfolio of investments. But unlike mutual funds, ETF shares trade like stocks on exchanges, and can be bought or sold throughout the trading day at fluctuating prices.
With ETFs, capital gains and taxes are generally recognized only when investors sell their own shares.
That's why he often recommends they buy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) instead of picking individual stocks. Berkshire actually holds two of them in its portfolio: The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -1.52%), and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY -1.53%).
For example, you might buy SPY if you want to trade actively, or even venture into day trading, because of its high volume. You might consider buying VOO to hold over the long term because of its lower expenses.
Average Return
In the past year, QQQ returned a total of 25.74%, which is slightly higher than VOO's 24.33% return. Over the past 10 years, QQQ has had annualized average returns of 18.26% , compared to 13.04% for VOO. These numbers are adjusted for stock splits and include dividends.