BlackRock’s (NYSE: BLK) iShares unit, the world’s largest ETF sponsor, cleaned up in Morningstar’s 2013 awards for best U.S. ETFs and providers. The awards were announced at Morningstar’s ETF Invest Conference in Chicago.
“Morningstar identifies Investor and Trader class winners across 40 ETF categories; the category winner is the highest ranked in the category versus its peers in terms of total cost of ownership and risk-adjusted returns,” said Morningstar in a statement.
Across four category groups – international equity, setctor ETFs, taxable bonds, and U.S. stocks – iShares won three categories with Vanguard, the third-largest U.S. ETF issuer, winning the sector group.
Winning iShares ETFs include highly popular funds such as the iShares Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU), which won the U.S. commodities category, and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (NasdaqGS: IBB), which won the U.S. health care category.
The $14.4 billion iShares Core Total U.S. Bond Market ETF (NYSEArca: AGG) was among the iShares bond ETFs to claim accolades from morningstar.
Vanguard, which in most cases offers the cheapest U.S. sector ETFs, claimed awards for popular ETFs such as the Vanguard REIT Index ETF (NYSEArca: VNQ), Vanguard Utilities ETF (NSYE: VPU) and the Vanguard Energy ETF (NYSE: VDE), among other sector funds. Most of Vanguard ETF that track the GICS sectors charge just 0.14% per year, making them the cheapest sector ETFs on the market.
The PowerShares Golden Dragon China Portfolio (NYSEArca: PGJ) took home the Morningstar award for top China ETF. That is not surprising as the tech-heavy PGJ has surged almost 56% this year even as larger China ETFs have struggled. [http://www.etftrends.com/2013/09/this-china-etf-keeps-outperforming-bigger-rivals/]
The WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (NYSEArca: DXJ) took home the Morningstar award for top Japan ETF. DXJ, which has raked in over $8.8 billion in assets this year, is 2013’s top asset-gathering ETF.
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post. Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of DXJ and VNQ.