The Debate over ETFs in 401(k) Plans

交易所交易资金是金融服务业增长最快的部分之一。但是，随着退休计划赶上他们非常缓慢。基于旧金山的折扣经纪公司Charles Schwab在2月初在几次延迟和三年的发展后揭开了ETF 401（K）平台的市场。Schwab的新平台提供从各种部门的大约80个不同的ETF，包括商品，贵金属和emerging-marketsbonds, which are not typically found on retirement plan menus.

In contrast to mutual funds, a typical retirement savings vehicle, ETFs offer intraday pricing, no early redemption fees or minimum holding periods and lower management fees. Schwab asserts that its platform can slash retirement plan costs by 90 percent, compared with plans using actively managed mutual funds, and by 30 percent, compared with plans with index mutual funds. Schwab’s ETF-only 401(k) platform will charge an average of 10 basis points for every $10,000 invested, which works out to $10.

Over time, differences in basis points add up. The Fund Analyzer关于金融业监管机构网站发票显示为每个10000美元ested in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which returns an average 5 percent over 20 years, the charge is $9 annually, for a total cost of $302. Yearly fees over two decades for the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX), which charges $17 per $10,000 annually for the investor class, come up to $565. In contrast, an investor in the largest actively managed U.S. mutual fund, Growth Fund of America (AGTHX), run by Los Angeles–based Capital Group Companies’ American Funds division, would pay an eye-popping $2,062.89 after 20 years, given the fund’s annual management fee of $70 per $10,000 invested in the same scenario. And that’s not including the fund’s 5.75 percent sales load. Schwab doesn’t charge ETF providers to be listed on its platform and doesn’t have any revenue-sharing agreement with them.

Some industry insiders believe retirement plan providers have been slow to include exchange-traded funds in 401(k) plans because — unlike mutual funds — ETFs don’t offer revenue sharing as do mutual funds.

“A considerable source of a plan provider’s compensation comes from revenue-sharing arrangements they have brokered with various mutual fund companies,” Stephen Rischall, vice president and financial adviser at 1080 Financial Group in Los Angeles, said in an e-mail. “It would negatively impact revenues collected by the insurance and investment companies providing the platform.”

Schwab has received a few commitments to sign on to its new platform later this year, says Mike Peterson, a director of public relations at the firm’s office in Richfield, Ohio. Schwab joins the ranks of ShareBuilder and TD Ameritrade, both of which started offering ETFs in their 401(k) platforms years ago.

Adding ETFs to retirement plans is like making Apple software run on Windows-based computers. Retirement plans’ technology and record-keeping systems were created to accommodate only mutual funds, which are priced just once a day. 401(k) platforms were not initially designed to handle bid-ask spreads, intraday pricing or brokerage commissions that come with exchange-traded vehicles. ETFs did not offer fractional ownership like mutual funds in which clients can invest $100 every month and buy half a share each time. Offering ETFs in 401(k) platforms ends up costing more than mutual funds because ETFs technically have to be converted into mutual funds under the hood, which creates an added cost, says Robert Massa, director of retirement at Ascende, a retirement consulting and investment advisory firm in Houston.

“如果你不在那个施瓦布平台上，那么它不值得这样做，因为它最终变得越来越贵，”马萨斯说。“如果你只能每天交换一次，那么你就会回到一个共同的基金。”

与一些共同基金的机构股票的岩石底部相比，ETF的费用更昂贵。对于中，大型和大型公司大小的计划提供的计划，为指数共同资金的机构股票阶级支付，大型和大型公司尺寸的企业提供的计划，或者每10,000美元的资产支付。平均而言，401（k）计划参与者支付的费用达到资产的0.63％，而2012年的平均互联资金管理费不到4.4％的一半，根据华盛顿的投资公司学院。

此外，伊利诺伊因基于投资咨询公司Aon Hewitt的外包投资战略主管，Winfield Imens表示，企业主在公司退休计划中提供了利基的市场或盘区交易。401(k) plan administrators in the U.S.

“It’s incumbent upon the ETF world to convince us it’s a good idea, not the other way around,” says Evens. “I am completely disabused of the idea that there’s a story here for the institutional defined-contribution-plan sponsor until the market shows me otherwise.”

Another of the country’s largest defined-contribution-plan providers, Malvern, Pennsylvania–based Vanguard Group, has received interest in ETFs mostly from smaller businesses with less than $5 million in assets under management, because they don’t have access to the lower-cost institutional shares of index funds.

在401（k）计划中包括ETF可能与创建经纪窗口一样简单，可以在退休账户内交易任何交易。基于纽约的资产管理公司的Rye Brook，提供13个ETF的Rye Brook，并在管理层下的资产中拥有13亿美元，而没有针对401（k）计划的有足够的增长机会，Sendiq的首席执行官和创始人表示，没有针对401（k）计划。当最大的退休平台开始提供ETF时，他将考虑改变他的分销策略。

“We don’t have the market power to convince a trillion-dollar 401(k) platform to offer a one-off ETF, because it’s a major change in their technology and accounting,” says Patti. “There’s no incentive for them to offer ETFs if they have a captive audience with their own mutual fund complex.”

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