I don’t know if people are aware of this so I will try and explain simply.
The OCF is not the only price you pay for an ETF. Every time you purchase a share from an ETF provider you will pay for a ‘spread’ price. This can vary quite drastically. The best place to check what a spread price of a certain Etf is, is probably on London South East or Times Money.
So for example whilst SPXL is the cheapest S&P 500 tracker with an OCF of 0.03%…but every time you buy it, the spread is typically about 0.08% so you have factor in those costs.
Vuag has an OCF of 0.07% but a typical spread of 0.03%…
ACWI the cheapest All World fund with an OCF of 0.12% has a spread today of 1.50%
I am sure people are aware of these charges, but many may not be.
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This is great advice I’m sure people will benefit from!
ACWIs spread does look odd though?
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Is there anywhere on the IE website which gives the bid:ask spread for each ETF?
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No, sorry. All I’ve done is check the ETFs I’m investing in on the LSE, as described by Gandalf. Once I’ve satisfied myself that they are liquid (small difference between the bid and the ask), I add them to my portfolio and invest.
The bid/ask spreads will change daily but I don’t bother continually checking them.
Another good indicator which IE does display is the AUM (assets under management). The higher the AUM, the better because it indicates how much money is invested and therefore, how liquid the ETF might be.
I say might be, because it’s not always the case, so check on the LSE.
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Absolutely, liquidity is a big issue, but then XNAQ is not the most liquid or largest AUM and yet it has a spread typically around 0.06%. ACWI, FNRG, LGGG all have larger spreads as does IITU…
I actually Pound cost Average on a weekly basis (usually a Monday) so I do keep an eye on the spreads, but it’s something that maybe newer investors aren’t aware of, (or even bothered about) and it’s not something that IE have any control over either.
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No, it’s something IE don’t have any influence over
This is useful to know, thanks Gandalf.
A question, does the price of the instrument affect the spread at all? Eg an ETF with a lower price (say £5.00) might have the same actual spread as a higher priced ETF but the % will be much higher… 1p of a £5 per share ETF is a much higher % than 1p of an ETF priced as £50 for example.
Thanks for your help 
@Gandalf is the spread on ACWI 1.5%? I make it much lower but I might be wrong…
Depends on the day, volume etc
100% it does. Seems to me it’s around 0.01%.
Yes on HGL site it says indicative spread of 0.17%…but if you go to London South East and actually watch the spreads on some ETFs, they can seriously fluctuate…IITU is one that can fluctuate. The thing with IE is because they do a ‘bulk order’ at 2:00pm, you will get the spread price for that particular time of the day. For me personally I only invest in VUAG and XNAQ at the moment and the spreads are pretty consistent at 0.03% and 0.06% daily and I buy on a weekly basis, so I do have a fairly good idea at what the spreads are likely to be. Of course this may not bother investors, but for me it does stack-up and does influence my choice of ETFs…I.e. choosing VUAG over SPXL.Lon. I guess I was trying to just raise awareness of the issue 
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