State Street Global Advisors on Wednesday announced it lowered the fees on four SPDR exchange-traded funds. The affected funds and their new net expense ratios comprise the following:
• SPDR Bloomberg Barclays International Treasury Bond ETF (BWX) went from a net expense ratio of 0.50 percent to 0.35 percent
• SPDR Nuveen S&P High Yield Municipal Bond ETF (HYMB) was reduced from 0.45 percent to 0.35 percent
• SPDR SSGA Income Allocation ETF (INKM) was cut from 0.70 percent to 0.50 percent
• SPDR SSGA Multi-Asset Real Return ETF (RLY) was also trimmed from 0.70 percent to 0.50 percent
The moves are the latest from State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corp., to bring its costs in line with its chief competitors as fee pressure continues to grip the ETF industry.
BWX, for example, the largest international government bond-focused ETF with assets under management of $1.1 billion, now has the same expense ratio as its closest rival in that space, the $880 million iShares International Treasury Bond ETF (IGOV). The third-biggest fund in the category, the $853 million iShares Core International Aggregate Bond ETF (IAGG), charges just 0.09 percent.
Among the two high-yield municipal bond ETFs listed by ETFdb, the VanEck Vectors High-Yield Municipal Index ETF (HYD) has assets of $2.7 billion and an expense ratio of 0.35 percent. State Street’s HYMB fund has $532.7 in AUM and an expense ratio that now matches HYD.
Among asset allocation ETFs, the INKM fund remains twice as expensive as the three largest funds in this group, all of which are iShares products. Meanwhile, the RLY fund is by far the largest and least expensive ETF in the “real return” category.
“We are constantly evaluating the SPDR ETF lineup to meet client demand,” said Noel Archard, SSGA's global head of SPDR product, in a press statement announcing the fee reductions.