ETFs in the Rough: Discounted, Low-Expense-Ratio, Diversified Funds

    There are a number of compelling aspects of ETFs.  One is their good match to NAV.  Given the pricing mechanism and liquidity that has developed on the market, few funds trade at non-trivial premiums or discounts to actual asset.  That said, however, there are slight persistent discounts or premia in a number of funds.  Another attribute that makes them favorable to traditional mutual funds is their low load or expense ratio, allowing more of the return to be actually realized for long-term investors.  Lastly, given their open exchange nature, much more information is available at much less cost.

    I wanted to focus on funds that exemplified these factors.  Thus, I have generated a list of funds

  1. trading at or below par
  2. with below-average expense ratios
  3. with more than 100M in assets
  4. with no single holding of weight greater than 10%

Here is a table summarizing the 22 resulting ETFs, sorted by increasing expense ratio.

Symbol Expense Ratio P/D
VV 0.07% -0.01%
VXF 0.08% -0.02%
VB 0.10% 0.01%
VTV 0.11% 0.01%
VBR 0.12% 0.05%
IWB 0.15% 0.04%
IVE 0.18% 0.02%
IJS 0.25% 0.03%
IJT 0.25% -0.12%
JKE 0.25% 0.04%
VAW 0.25% -0.05%
VCR 0.25% -0.02%
VFH 0.25% -0.04%
VIG 0.28% -0.04%
ADRD 0.30% 0.02%
FEZ 0.32% 0.10%
KBE 0.35% 0.10%
KCE 0.35% 0.02%
XME 0.35% -0.06%
DTN 0.38% 0.00%
DVY 0.40% 0.03%
IOO 0.40% 0.09%