Vanguard Pares Fees on High Dividend ETF

Vanguard, the third-largest U.S. ETF issuer, announced that has slightly lowered the annual expense ratio on the popular Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSE:

). The new expense ratio on the ETF is 0.1 percent per year, down from 0.13 percent,

. VYM's new expense ratio equals $10 charged to investors for every $10,000 invested and makes the ETF cheaper than 92 percent of comparable funds,

. VYM, which tracks the FTSE High Dividend Yield Index, is home to 432 stocks and a third of the ETF's weight was devoted to its top-10 holdings at the end of January. At that time, VYM's top-10 holdings were comprised entirely of Dow Jones Industrial Average members. The ETF's top-three holdings are Exxon Mobil (NYSE:

), General Electric (NYSE:

) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:

). Consumer staples receives the largest sector weight at 19.3 percent with energy next at 13.1 percent. Health care, industrials and financials also receive double-digit allocations. News of lower fees is nothing new from Vanguard, an issue often viewed as the low-cost leader in the ETF space. In late December, the firm

. A week before that, Vanguard pared fees on

. For more on ETFs, click

.