iShares: Lower Expenses

Reduction of the expense ratio of funds is a new war Mutual Fund companies are waging against each other ( read our past posting) since last year. In a recent move the San Francisco based Barclays Global Investors has cut fees for a number of the firm's Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), known as iShares.

In a filing BGI stated that the expense ratio for several sector offerings tied to Standard & Poor's indexes will go down to 0.48% from a current ratio of 0.65% of assets. These include iShares S&P Global Energy (IXC) , iShares S&P Global Financials (IXG), iShares S&P Global Healthcare (IXJ), iShares S&P Global Technology (IXN).

Similarly, BGI's lineup of U.S. sector ETFs hitched to Dow Jones indexes, such as iShares Dow Jones U.S. Energy (IYE) and iShares Dow Jones U.S. Utilities (IDU) will have expense ratio of 0.48% -- down from the current 0.6%.

Additionally, the iShares tied to Goldman Sachs indexes, including iShares Goldman Sachs Technology (IGM) as well as iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology (IBB) will have their expense ratios move to 0.48% from 0.5%.

These newly reduced numbers would be effective from May 1.