State Street Global Advisors' fees have declined in the past year, even as its assets have risen. On Tuesday in its third quarter earnings report, State Street Corporation revealed that SSgA boasted $1.735 trillion in assets under management on September 30, 2009, up 2.9 percent year-over-year. Yet, SSgA brought in $219 million in investment management fees in the third quarter of 2009, down 16 percent year-over-year.

SSgA boasts the second-largest family of exchange-traded funds in the U.S., behind Barclays Global Investors' iShares, soon to be part of BlackRock.

So why the disparity between AUM change and fee change?

"The decline in management fees is attributable primarily to the approximately 16 percent decrease in average month-end valuations, as well as a change in the composition of assets under management from active to passive strategies," State Street officials said. 

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