Financial Analysts Journal March/April 2013 Volume 69 Issue 2
The Arithmetic of Investment Expenses
Abstract
Recent regulatory changes have brought a renewed focus on the impact of investment expenses on investors’ financial well-being. The author offers methods for calculating relative terminal wealth levels for those investing in funds with different expense ratios. Under plausible conditions, a person saving for retirement who chooses low-cost investments could have a standard of living throughout retirement more than 20% higher than that of a comparable investor in high-cost investments.