What is the expense ratio and how it is calculated?
Expense ratio is an annualised percentage representing the management fees charged by the fund.
In practice, it is converted to a proportionate daily percentage and deducted daily by the fund from the investment value. The NAV is declared after deducting this fees.
Illustration:
Let's say you invest $100 today. Entire $100 gets invested under your name.
Next day, assume that the portfolio of the fund goes up by 1%. So $100 becomes $101. From this the fund will deduct their management fees of 1.75%/250 = 0.007 (there are 250 trading days in a year) and will tell you that instead of $101, the NAV is $100.993.
In the same way, let's say instead of going up by 1%, it went down by 1% the next day. So $100 -> $99. Management fees is still 1.75%/250. So that will be deducted in any case. So instead of $99 it will become $98.993.
This way you pay management fees only for the duration you are invested in.