OK, I get the surface difference, but beyond that I'm a bit flummoxed...
iShares recently changed two of their ETFs, ILCB and ISCB -- read the symbol as Large Cap Blend and Small Cap Blend, where blend includes both Growth and Value. In addition to a technical change in fund name and symbol, they also changed their **reference index**.
For the LargeCap fund, index changed from a Morningstar all-cap index to an MCSI Large/Mid index.
1) What's the impact to me? I own the same number of shares with the same value after the conversion, but now the fund excludes some small-cap stocks. Also, the MCSI index contains only 525 stocks, not >1000.
2) Might this help the fund manager itself? For example, indexes have to be "licensed" from the provider; might the MCSI index be cheaper for them to use compared to the Morningstar index? This savings could be passed along to me as a reduction in MER, but that's already pretty low...
3) What else am I missing in this conversion?
(Yes, I've searched. Yes, I've tried to understand the AI summary -- I didn't get enough of it.)