Going, going, almost gone: Fund fees drop to record low

The stock market keeps going higher, but fees to own funds keep going lower.

Investors paid less to own funds last year than ever before: about $48 in expenses for every $10,000 invested, according to a study by fund tracker Morningstar.

That's roughly half of what investors paid in 2000, when expenses ate up $93 of every $10,000 invested. Last year alone, investors saved a cumulative $5.5 billion thanks to the drop in fees from 2017, the second largest decline on record since 2000.

While the difference of $1, or a few hundredths of a percentage point in expense ratios, may not sound like much, it adds up over the decades that a 401(k) account can grow compounded returns.