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Vanguard lowered net expense ratios on more of its funds: this time, four exchange-traded funds and three mutual fund share classes of the Vanguard Extended Market Fund.
The affected ETFs include the $8.3 billion Vanguard Extended Market ETF, where the net expense ratio declined to 0.06% from 0.07%. They also include the $21.9 billion Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF, $12.6 billion Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF and $4.8 billion Vanguard Long-Term Bond ETF, with the expense net ratio on each of the three declining to 0.05% from 0.07%.
Vanguard also reported lower expense ratios on three mutual fund share classes of the Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund, with the net expense ratio dipping to 0.06% from 0.07% on Admiral shares, to 0.05% from 0.06% on Institutional shares, and to 0.04% from 0.05% on Institutional Plus shares.
In aggregate, the changes "represent $12.9 million in savings returned to investors, bringing the total 2019 fiscal year client savings" to $85.1 million, Vanguard said.
"Driven in part by record fixed income ETF cash flow," Vanguard reported lower expense ratios on 16 of its 18 U.S. bond ETFs during the 2019 fiscal year. Its fixed income ETFs saw $37.1 billion in cash flow, up 103% increase from $18.3 billion in 2018. Vanguard expects greater fixed income ETF adoption to continue, it said.
Hartford Core Bond ETF Launches
Hartford Funds introduced the Hartford Core Bond ETF (HCRB), with a 0.29% net expense ratio.
The new ETF is sub-advised by Wellington Management, which is looking to provide long-term total return by investing mainly in investment-grade fixed income securities. It was "designed to provide investors with high quality fixed income exposure from diversified sources of return across multiple perspectives, investment styles, and time horizons," including U.S. government, credit and securitized instruments, Hartford Funds said.
The actively managed ETF structure enables HCRB to provide shareholders with the "benefits of transparency, intraday trading, and the potential for increased tax-efficiency via the ETF creation and redemption process," the firm said. HCRB expands Hartford's product suite to five actively managed fixed income ETFs.
Planning Solutions Strategy Announced By eMoney Advisor
A strategy to provide planning solutions for every stage of a client's lifecycle was announced by eMoney Advisor.
The company's enhanced planning vision for products and features "enables advisors and firms to meet the increasing demand for advice at all levels — from a single planning topic to the most sophisticated of plans — through a scalable, interactive and comprehensive solution," it said.
One component of the strategy is a new financial mobile app for self-directed planning. The app is in development now and expected to launch later this year, eMoney Advisor said. For now, it has no official name, but is being referred to a "Project Avocado." Advisors will be able to use it to "scale their business to reach hundreds or thousands of clients and prospects," the firm said.
The company, meanwhile, continues to make enhancements to its platform and new features under development include: interactive and dynamic reports, a unified presentation builder, streamlined workflow for a more "seamless user experience," automated intelligence, client site planning and value tracking, it said.
