Vanguard total stock market index fund top holdings

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience. By Steven Goldberg , Contributing Columnist Originally published April See My Picks: But which index funds?

This article will help you construct a simple but powerful package that also includes bonds and stocks of small companies, as well as foreign stocks. You would have had to be living in a cave the past year to miss the clamor over index funds.

vanguard total stock market index fund top holdings

Everyone from Warren Buffett to Dilbert has extolled their merits lately. But they are a sound method. How to build an index portfolio? To start with, stick to Vanguard-sponsored mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Vanguard practically invented index funds and has decades of experience running them—virtually without a hiccup.

It takes real expertise to manage an index fund well, which means coming as close as humanly possible to matching the return of the underlying index. More importantly, Vanguard funds are frequently, though not always, the cheapest. Blackrock or Schwab may offer some funds or ETFs at slightly lower prices — but over time, I expect those prices to rise.

Best Total Stock Market Index Funds - Definition

Below are the only index funds or ETFs you need to achieve your goals. Choose ETFs or conventional funds depending on what works best for you; if expenses are equal, there should be essentially no difference in performance between a mutual fund and an ETF that tracks the same index. For each fund, I list the symbol for the mutual fund version first and then for the ETF. This fund gives you the entire U.

The fund tracks the CRSP U. Over the past 10 years, the fund earned 8. All returns are through March Small Cap Value Index.

But you need patience here. Over the past 10 years, the fund returned 9. Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U. The fund tracks the FTSE All-World ex-U. In investing, extrapolating the recent past into the indefinite future is a common and costly error. But emerging-markets stocks are cheap, and the long-term argument for these fast-growing lands remains strong.

The risk-adjusted returns of intermediate bonds that is, returns relative to volatility have historically been stronger than those of both long-term bonds and short-term bonds. I prefer a corporate bond ETF over a total bond market ETF because the latter holds too many Treasury bonds, which yield less than corporate IOUs.

Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond tracks Barclays Capital U. The fund returned an annualized 6. Rebalance your portfolio annually to bring the funds back in line with the desired allocation. Steve Goldberg is an investment adviser in the Washington, D.

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Why Vanguard Total Stock Market isn’t the best fund in the fleet - MarketWatch

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Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares (VTSMX) Top Portfolio Holdings

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