RetireJapan

The expense ratio competition has been going on for a while. I think fidelity announced some at zero percent last summer, along with zero fees for some other services (nice). Schwab's broad mkt ETF, SCHB, has been at 0.03% for a couple years now.

Great for US investors, but then when those same things are offered outside the US...?

I tried buying some of the zero expense ratio mutual funds from Fidelity in my Fidelity account and they wouldn’t let me because I live in Japan. Same experience at Schwab. Vanguard still lets me add to my S&P 500 index mutual fund (maybe I’m grandfathered in) but I’ve noticed in the last few years having a foreign address blocks us from many of the new funds.

Isn't that a mutual fund vs ETF distinction? Foreign-addressed persons (even if they are US) are supposedly not allowed to buy mutual funds, while ETFs are fair game.

But really, anything under 0.1% is good enough, and below that point I'd be choosing based on other factors besides expense ratio.

Yes, the ETF would be available but I think there’s a fee within the ETF (the management expense ratio) that you avoid with a zero management fee mutual fund (unlike the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF vs mutual fund where there are different share classes of the same fund there is no exact ETF matching the Fidelity zero fee mutual funds and the fund company is absorbing those costs). I agree these amounts are now very, very small for good total market and index funds and asset choice is more important than eliminating those final 10 basis points.