How To Avoid The Worst Style ETFs 2Q18

 | Jun 26, 2018 09:28AM ET

Question: Why are there so many ETFs?

Answer: ETF providers tend to make lots of money on each ETF so they create more products to sell.

The large number of ETFs has little to do with serving your best interests. Below are three red flags you can use to avoid the worst ETFs:

  1. Inadequate Liquidity

This issue is the easiest issue to avoid, and our advice is simple. Avoid all ETFs with less than $100 million in assets. Low levels of liquidity can lead to a discrepancy between the price of the ETF and the underlying value of the securities it holds. Plus, low asset levels tend to mean lower volume in the ETF and larger bid-ask spreads.

  1. High Fees

ETFs should be cheap, but not all of them are. The first step here is to know what is cheap and expensive.

To ensure you are paying at or below average fees, invest only in ETFs with total annual costs below 0.46%, which is the average total annual cost of the 441 U.S. equity style ETFs we cover. The weighted average is lower at 0.15%, which highlights how investors tend to put their money in ETFs with low fees.

Figure 1 shows Forensic Accounting Long-Short ETF (NASDAQ:FLAG) is the most expensive style ETF and Schwab U.S. Large Cap ETF (NYSE:SCHX) is the least expensive. Exchange Traded Concepts Trust provides one of the most expensive ETFs while Schwab (SCHX, SCHB) and State Street (SPLG, SPTM) ETFs are among the cheapest.