Tuesday's Fund Track column in the Wall Street Journal takes Morgan Stanley to task for high expenses in its S&P 500 index fund. Actually, the article is more critical of the wirehouse for misleading shareholders about the fund's performance.

The paper contends that while the fund's semiannual report tells of the its "strong performance" in its management description, a table included later in the filing shows that all four share classes of the fund have lagged the index by between 24 and 84 basis points. The worst performer was the fund's B shares, which include extra fees to compensate brokers.

Those shares come in for special criticism in the article.

A Morgan Stanley spokesperson told the paper that the firm has reduced the expenses on the fund to 20 basis points from 28 basis points, a move that should close some of the gap.  

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