BlackRock reduced fees on several exchange-traded funds, including the nearly $86 billion iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, the world's biggest bond ETF.
The net expense ratio for the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF dropped to 0.03% from 0.04%, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday showed.
"BlackRock regularly reviews the fees its ETFs charge and has been bringing the cost down for many popular products over the years as ETF adoption has accelerated but still has further room for growth," said Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at ETF Trends. "BlackRock has the scale to pass along savings in hopes of bringing more investors into the industry."
As the largest fixed-income ETF, iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF is "the default product for many institutions to gain broad market access to the bond market through investment-grade corporate bonds, Treasuries and other U.S. government bonds," Mr. Rosenbluth said.
While the fund's strong liquidity has helped it attract interest from insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds and others, being less expensive than other large competing products will help support its asset growth, he said.
"IEMG is the other really large ETF to see a fee cut," Mr. Rosenbluth said, referring to the $73 billion iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF by its ticker symbol.
That fund saw it expense ratio drop to 0.09% from 0.11% previously, a separate SEC filing Thursday showed.
"BlackRock makes enhancements to iShares ETFs as part of an ongoing review of its product lineup to both meet and anticipate the needs of our clients," a BlackRock spokesman said in response to a request for comment.
