Over just ten years, 3.13% compounds to over 36%. I think most investors would like to know about such a large additional cost before they put their money into an ETF.

Investors in this sector would be better served buying a basket of Attractive-or-better rated stocks rather than paying fees to funds with poor holdings.

The U.S. utility sector has performed remarkably well this year. Relentless geopolitical tensions stretching from Russia to Iraq have resulted in elevated levels of risk-off trade sentiment among investors.

The Utilities sector ranks tenth out of the ten sectors as detailed in my Sector Rankings for ETFs and Mutual Funds report. It gets my Very Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 9 ETFs and 33 mutual funds in the Utilities sector as of July 17,2014.

Stocks saw elevated volume and volatility last week, and the 100-day simple moving average on the S&P 500 proved to be the proverbial line-in-the-sand for bullish investors.

In a recent article, Chuck Jaffe wrote that when he considers a mutual fund or ETF, he looks at the ratings of three research firms: Morningstar, Lipper, and New Constructs.