Vanguard Rolls Out Exchange-Traded Fund Pegged to Wilshire 5000

Index-fund titan Vanguard finally stepped into the burgeoning exchange-traded fund world Thursday when its Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPERs began trading on the American Stock Exchange.

Stymied in its efforts to launch exchange-traded shares tracking the S&P 500 , Vanguard launched shares tracking the even broader Wilshire 5000 Total Market index on Thursday, trading under the symbol VTI. The new share class will carry a 0.15% expense ratio, or $15 a year on a $10,000 investment. That's slightly lower than the 0.2% annual fee on the fund's traditional fund shares, and both are well below an average large-cap blend fund's 1.24% annual expense ratio, according to Morningstar.

The new share class will give Vanguard a fund in the broad index-based exchange-traded fund market, as a licensing beef with Standard & Poor's has derailed the firm's efforts to launch exchange-traded shares for the (VFINX Quote)Vanguard 500 Index fund. ...