The article does say Vanguard index mutual funds are not available in Canada BUT that its ETFs are. Any brokerage customer can buy Vanguard ETFs on American exchanges.
And I COULD have used the 0.07% MER of the Vanguard Total Market ETF as the ultra-low example but didn't: Just used the average 0.20% they gave out yesterday.
Stating that the fund isn't available and then comparing it anyway still doesn't make any sense. You're right that their ETFs are available to anyone with a brokerage account. But then what is the big deal: if you can buy them then that should effectively be counted as one of the cheap funds available to Canadians. But I'd bet it's not in the "official average" now is it?
Minor point: VTI's MER crept up to 0.09% I believe. But what's a couple of basis points between investors?
The end of the blog provides all the context you seem to be demanding here: see comments by Preet and by Duncan Stewart.
Maybe I'm a tool (I admit it at least) but I'm not sure their comments really touch on what irks me about this article. Duncan does talk about risk adjusted performance, which I think is useful. But the notion that you should compare to F series doesn't make much sense either. Nobody can buy F series funds but you can buy VTI or iShares so that doesn't seem to make sense to compare against something that you can't buy. (See, I'm not just a Chevreau basher.)
Same applies to Preet's comments to a degree. Whether you should add 12b-1 fees depends on what kind of investor you are. If you're the smarter DIY types that hang out in forums like this and the Financial Webring then you probably should NOT add any trailer fee for comparison becaues you're likely to avoid trailers altogether.
You would compare against F series or add trailers for an academic exercise comparing fees and investigating sources of fee differences. Or if you're an investor who would seek the services of an advisor you might do that. But for DIY investors, you'd compare U.S. ETFs with Canadian ETFs and index funds - NOT with the AVERAGE ACTIVE FUND.
As for the Tufano study, I wouldn't say its findings that Canadian MERs are higher than most other developed countries have been refuted at all. Some have assailed the methodology and the conclusions but directionally they appear to be in the ballpark, certainly relative to the U.S.
Then, with all due respect, you haven't been reading critiques with much objectivity. Perhaps his study supports the axe you apparently like to grind but it's not sound. That little part above that I wrote about an academic exercise aimed at teasing out the source of differences between two markets, eg U.S. vs Cda, does not appear to have been done in Tufano et al.
But let's forget about that for a minute Mr. Chevreau. I want to re-emphasize something you said.
Some have assailed the methodology [of Tufano et al] and the conclusions but directionally they appear to be in the ballpark, certainly relative to the U.S.
So you acknowledge that an academic study has problems with its methodology but you blindly accept its conclusion anyway? If the method is unsound then the conclusion, by definition, is questionable. Yet it appears that you accept the conclusion anyway. Why is that?
But then, why listen to me? Who am I, right? Based on your response to an earlier exchange (a month or two ago), what on earth does a commission hungry MFDA saleswoman know about all of this complicated stuff anyway, right? But I'd challenge you to focus on the message, not what you think you know about the messenger. Sorry, this stuff gets me riled up. Time to turn off the computer and grab a cooler.