Vanguard may also adhere to its monthly disclosures as a way to protect the proprietary indices that the company’s ETFs track. The provider swapped out MSCI benchmarks on a group of U.S. stock and international stock ETFs for University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices, or CRSP, and FTSE indices in 2012. [Vanguard Changing Indices for Several ETFs]
In contrast, widely tracked indices from MSCI, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Russell Investments are harder to front-run or free-trade, whereas the FTSE and CRSP indices have more customized holdings.
“What’s inside isn’t always as obvious,” Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual-fund research at analysts S&P Capital IQ, said of CRPS and FTSE.
For more information on ETFs, visit our ETF 101 category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.