An interview on the web site indexuniverse.com with author Larry Swedroe, a champion of passive investment strategies, discusses the fee war waging among the major ETF providers. The interview is interesting for highlighting the current state of the ETF industry and how pricing pressure among ETF providers directly benefits investors at the expense of the purveyors of active management. Following are a couple of excerpts from the interview…
This is great news. I like to think of it using the Dickens line: “It was the best of times, it was worst of times.” It’s the best of times for consumers; it’s the worst of times for Wall Street. Consumers are winning big here: They’re getting more product offering; competition is great.
So the consumer is winning by getting cheaper and better, more differentiated product with good academic grounding and not the sleaze from Wall Street where they’re telling you: “We’ve got this Black Box, and we’re smarter than everybody else and we can pick stuff.”
Following is a link to the full text of the interview…