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ETFs are simply mutual funds married with high frequency trading.

Read about Authorized Participants if you're confused as to what HFT has to do with ETFs. Overall it's a decent improvement over the very old idea of open-ended funds, given the recent digitalisation of trading and super fast market making with tiny spreads.

PS. I like ETFs, I think they're achieving exactly what are they supposed to achieve.

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Also, read the prospectus of any ETF you already own, and you’ll get the gist of APs, enough to understand why your fees are so low.

There's also securities lending (to short sellers), many ETF sponsors retain all proceeds from securities lending for themselves. This is similar to how many brokerages earn most of their revenues by taking a spread on cash balances, so they can charge very little on transaction costs (i.e., they pay you less for unused cash than money markets pay them). After all borrowing money is the same as shorting cash, so there's nice symmetry here :)

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