Focus on Investing costs and ETF fees
In this article, we will look at how you can increase your return on investments by cutting costs and why ETF Expense Ratios are crucial to your returns. There are two types costs when buying an ETF:
- ETF Expense Ratio (similarly to any Fund, the Asset Manager charges an annual fee for managing the assets)
- Brokerage costs – how much will your broker charge when you buy and sell the ETF. These costs also add up if you invest on a recurrent basis and when you rebalance your portfolio
Why Cost Matters
Cutting costs is an essential part of every investor’s success strategy. When it comes to investing, every dollar that is paid as trading commissions or management fees is a dollar lost. The main point here is that these costs can be controlled and thus minimized.
While Brokerage costs are one off (when you buy/sell), ETF Expense ratio is charged annually.
Bankeronwheels.com has a ETF Fee calculator where you can plug ETF Expense Ratios for 2 Funds and compare how much you will lose out over the life of an investment – an illustration of how it works is shown below with a starting investment of $100k
After 25 years the difference is a staggering $92.7k between a Fund with 0.05% Fee and a Fund with 0.5% Fee (do your own simulation)
Improving Returns by Reducing Costs
There are two methods of improving after-cost returns for investors – earning higher returns by using a winning investment strategy or getting a winning manager, and the other method is by reducing expenses. You have limited control over the first one since you don’t that in advance. You can fully control the second factor.
Use Indexing to Cut Costs
ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and index funds usually have the lowest costs in the mutual funds industry. Therefore, by using indexed investment strategies, you can easily outperform higher-cost active managers.
Below are fees typically charged by Vanguard which is one of the cheapest Asset Managers in the industry (Google “Bogleheads” to understand why Vanguard has such a large fan base). Along with BlackRock and State Street, these are the TOP 3 ETF providers and here is how their funds compare considering only the Expense Ratios:
Think Twice before paying more than 0.4% annually
As you can see, most funds charge fees below 0.4%. Specialized ETFs can be more expensive and that’s why it’s good to have a strong reason to buy them.
Expense Ratios can depend on the type of underlying assets e.g.:
- Blue Chip Stock ETFs should have the lowest charges. E.g. S&P 500 ETF from Vanguard VOO charges only 0.03% annually
- Bond ETFs have slightly higher charges but some of the main Bond ETFs called Aggregate Funds (and probably the only ones you would need for a simple Investment Strategy whether it’s a 1 Year or 5 Year horizon) don’t charge more than 0.05%
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Beginners often ask us:
- How do I reach my goals – What investments do I need to take into consideration when e.g. Taking a Sabbatical, buying a House or saving for Early Retirement?
- When should I invest – I fear that investing a lump sum in this market may have a negative impact on my returns. How can timing of buying ETFs affect my performance?
Advanced investors may avoid costly mistakes:
- Challenge my Portfolio – Here is my portfolio – what am I missing? What could derail my strategy? What can I do to protect my portfolio from shocks?
- Help me quickly understand – What makes Inflation Linked Bonds outperform? Bond Ladder or Bond ETFs? Why do some investors add Small Cap Value stocks to their portfolios? How can I exclude Tobacco companies from my portfolio? Are the synthetic ETFs I screened safe? What is Factor Investing?
By signing up for a financial coaching session you support our website and our investment research. Here are other ways to help.
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Book a coaching session
Beginners often ask us:
- How do I reach my goals – What investments do I need to take into consideration when e.g. Taking a Sabbatical, buying a House or saving for Early Retirement?
- When should I invest – I fear that investing a lump sum in this market may have a negative impact on my returns. How can timing of buying ETFs affect my performance?
Advanced investors may avoid costly mistakes:
- Challenge my Portfolio – Here is my portfolio – what am I missing? What could derail my strategy? What can I do to protect my portfolio from shocks?
- Help me quickly understand – What makes Inflation Linked Bonds outperform? Bond Ladder or Bond ETFs? Why do some investors add Small Cap Value stocks to their portfolios? How can I exclude Tobacco companies from my portfolio? Are the synthetic ETFs I screened safe? What is Factor Investing?
By signing up for a financial coaching session you support our website and our investment research. Here are other ways to help.
Using Tax- Management Strategies to Improve After-Tax Returns
Reducing tax liability is another method of increasing returns. This can be done by allocating investments strategically among tax-advantaged and taxable accounts. The primary aim of this investment strategy is to hold tax-efficient investments like ETFs or broad-market stock index funds in taxable accounts while maintaining tax-inefficient investments like taxable bonds in retirement accounts.
Difference between ETFs and Index Funds
Remember there are differences between Index (Mutual) Funds and ETFs – while both are cheap on an annual basis ETFs give you flexbility since you can trade them at any time like regular Stocks while Index Funds don’t have any commission fees but give you less flexibility. If you’re in for the long term and contribute every month commission fees can quickly add up as well hence you may consider Index Mutual Funds.
ETF Fees vs. Index Funds Fees - Comparison
FROM OUR TEAM
This website was created to provide you with all necessary resources to invest without incurring any additional costs.
Servers, data, and software are some of our costs, just to name a few. Most importantly, our time is the main resource to create great content. If you find that our guides helped you on the path to financial success, you may give us a hand by buying a coffee.
By buying us a coffee you support our website and our investment research. Here are other ways to help.
FROM OUR TEAM
This website was created to provide you with all necessary resources to invest without incurring any additional costs.
Servers, data, and software are some of our costs, just to name a few. Most importantly, our time is the main resource to create great content. If you find that our guides helped you on the path to financial success, you may give us a hand by buying a coffee.
By buying us a coffee you support our website and our investment research. Here are other ways to help.
Conclusion
Although, as an investor, you cannot control the market, you can control what you pay to invest.
Over time employing cost-reduction investment strategies will lead to bigger returns and when compounded over an extended period of time, the earnings will be significant
