Read each fund's expense ratios, net assets, structure, premium or discount to NAV and flows between filings from the fund's own SEC filings
Answers what a fund costs, how large it is and how it is structured, from the fund's own SEC filings. For an open-end ETF or mutual fund it reads the tailored shareholder report (Form N-CSR or N-CSRS) for the period's costs as a percentage of a $10,000 investment, the fund's net assets, its holdings count and its turnover, and the prospectus fee table (Form 485BPOS) for gross and net annual operating expenses and any fee waiver, for the fund's own share class. For a unit investment trust it reads the annual census report (Form N-CEN) and its two newest annual or semi-annual reports to holders (Form N-30D, which are not tagged) for net assets, net asset value per unit, units outstanding and the ratio of expenses to average net assets, each checked against the report's own statement of assets and liabilities, and for a trust or commodity pool that is not a registered fund it reads Forms 10-K and 10-Q for net assets, net asset value per share and the expense ratio where the filing tags one. Each figure is published with its filing, period and date, and a figure that fails its check against the filing itself is listed as unavailable with the reason. Where a filing states a NAV per share, it also states the fund's premium or discount to that NAV on the NAV's own date, from the unadjusted closing price of exactly that day (Market Data from Tiingo.com); where two consecutive filings state shares outstanding on the same basis, it states the change in shares between them and that change valued at the later filing's NAV per share, a valuation of net creations less redemptions that is our convention, not a figure the fund reports. An open-end fund's tagged shareholder report states neither a NAV per share nor shares outstanding, so neither figure is available for it. It describes funds only, and it does not cover daily NAV, daily premiums or discounts, daily flows or holdings.
What a fund's own filings say about its costs, its size and its structure.
THE EXPENSE RATIO. A fund's annual operating expenses (the management fee, distribution and service fees, and other expenses) stated as a percentage of average net assets. It is deducted from the fund's assets rather than billed, so it shows up only as a lower return than the fund's holdings earned. Two versions appear in filings and they answer different questions. The prospectus fee table states what the fund expects to charge in the year ahead, GROSS (before any waiver) and NET (after it). The shareholder report states what the fund actually charged over the period just ended, as the costs of a hypothetical $10,000 investment, in dollars and as a percentage.
FEE WAIVERS. An adviser can agree to waive part of its fee or reimburse expenses, which makes the net figure lower than the gross one. The fee table states the agreement's end date, and the arrangement is contractual and temporary: after that date the waiver can lapse, and gross is what the fund costs without it.
NET ASSETS AND NAV. Net assets are total assets less liabilities. Net asset value per share is net assets divided by shares outstanding, which is why the two must agree with the share count in the same filing. An exchange-traded fund's market price can differ from its NAV. On the date of a NAV a filing reports, the closing price less that NAV, divided by the NAV, is the premium (above the NAV) or discount (below it) shown here: only for that date and from that day's actual close, never another day's. A mutual fund is bought and redeemed at its NAV, so it has none.
FLOWS. A fund creates shares when investors put money in and redeems them when they take it out, so the change in shares outstanding between two filings is the net of what came in and went out. That change is exact from the filings. Its dollar value here is the change times the later filing's NAV per share, our convention for valuing the net creations and redemptions, not a figure the fund reports: shares are created and redeemed at each day's NAV, so the dollars the fund reports for them differ. A share split changes the count without any money moving, so no change is computed across one.
STRUCTURE. Most ETFs and every mutual fund are open-end funds registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which is what requires the shareholder reports and prospectus fee tables read here. Some exchange-traded products are not investment companies at all: a trust holding a physical commodity, such as a gold trust, and a commodity pool holding futures contracts file annual and quarterly reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q instead, and a unit investment trust files an annual census report and reports to holders that are not tagged, so its figures are read from the report's own tables. The structure decides which figures exist, which is why some are unavailable for some funds.
The checks (an expense ratio between 0 and 5 percent, net assets equal to the filing's own total, the fund's own share class, a closing price for exactly the NAV's date, share counts on the same basis in both filings) are our own convention. There is no score and no ranking: the analysis publishes filed figures, not a composite.
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