Investor Economics Insight June 2017

During the past three years, the majority of investment fund providers have taken steps to lower the price of their funds through the cutting of management fees, the lowering of administrative expenses and via the introduction of preferred pricing plans. Assets in series with unbundled distributor compensation have also continued to grow rapidly. As a consequence, the industry’s asset-weighted management expense ratio (MER) has continued to decline. The current issue of Insight explores recent trends in investment fund pricing across asset classes and fund series. The Trendlines article examines the extent of the substitution between ETFs and stand-alone mutual funds in different asset classes.