WSJ Hits Money Funds on Expenses
The Wall Street Journal's Jason Zweig claims, "Your Money-Market Fund Is Ripping You Off." He writes, "Cash is king. If only you didn't have to pay a king’s ransom to hold it. Ever since President Trump's tariff bombshells went off on April 2, cash has reasserted itself as a valuable shelter for investors. Money-market mutual funds -- the most convenient form of cash for most investors -- have stayed stable while providing steady income that has cushioned the damage in other markets. Yet money-market funds are surprisingly expensive, and a recent attempt to make them cheaper has been stymied. If you're like most investors, you probably pay close attention to your stock and bond funds, and little if any to your cash. But you're probably getting ripped off on your money-market funds -- and it's one of the biggest heists on Wall Street." The piece comments, "That stunning decline in costs has barely touched money-market funds. Since 2015, taxable and tax-free money-market mutual funds have grown by more than 150%, to $6.91 trillion from $2.75 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute. Over the same period, stock mutual funds (including international and balanced portfolios) grew less than 70%, to $16 trillion from $9.48 trillion. Yet the average expense ratio at U.S. stock mutual funds fell to 0.33% annually from 0.54%, according to Morningstar -- a 39% decline. Meanwhile, annual expenses at money funds rose slightly to 0.21% from 0.19% -- even though their assets boomed. (All these figures are weighted by the size of the funds.)" The Journal column adds, "Fund investors are supposed to benefit from economies of scale, since fixed costs get spread over much larger pools of assets. `Why hasn't that happened with money-market funds? Blame big brokers that are gouging you on cash. For most of the period between 2008 and 2021, the Federal Reserve kept short-term interest rates so low that money funds would have yielded less than zero after expenses. So the managers waived more than $50 billion in fees. With short-term rates back above 4%, $1 trillion has poured into money funds over the past year and fund companies can charge full freight again. The managers are 'rolling in money now,' says Peter Crane, president of Crane Data, a firm that tracks cash accounts, 'but they don't want to hear about cutting expenses because they just spent 10 years waiving fees.' Also, nobody had tried running a money-market fund as an ETF. So the mutual funds faced no competition from dirt-cheap ETFs. `Only last September did Dallas-based Texas Capital Bank Private Wealth Advisors succeed in launching the first money-market ETF. It quickly grew to $40 million, thanks to low fees and high yields. BlackRock's iShares followed this February with two money-market ETFs of its own."
