Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Becomes World's Only Trillion-Dollar Stock Fund
Assets of the fund, which has both a mutual fund and an ETF share class, reached $1.035 trillion as of Nov. 30.
Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index Fund (VITSX) has topped $1 trillion in assets, making it the world’s single biggest equity fund.
Assets of the fund, which has both a mutual fund and an ETF share class, reached $1.035 trillion as of Nov. 30, according to Morningstar.
Dan Wiener, editor of The Independent Adviser for Vanguard investors, expects the $1 trillion will stick, though there may be “a few lumps along the way” because Vanguard’s target date funds use the Total Stock Market Index Fund, which means “a constant inflow from retirement plans,” said Wiener.
The fund included 3,590 stocks as of the end of October, providing investors exposure to the entire U.S. stock markets and making it “one of the best core U.S. stocks funds available,” said Ben Johnson, Morningstar’s director of global ETF research, in a Morningstar update.
“Broad diversification, rock-bottom fees and the back of a capable steward of fund shareholder capital in Vanguard set it up for continued success,” added Johnson.
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The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund launched in 1992 and currently has an expense ratio of 4 basis points and a Morningstar analyst rating of Gold, the highest available. It has never experienced a year of outflows, though that record could be in jeopardy this year. It has seen $3.7 billion in outflows this year, through November, according to Morningstar.
The fund rating agency said the world’s largest mutual fund owes its asset growth more to the price appreciation of its portfolio than to inflows from investors. In only three of its 28 years —2011, 2015 and 2019 — did flows contribute more to asset growth than the appreciation of its holdings.
As of the end of October, the fund had 23.4% of its portfolio in tech stocks, compared with a 7.9% weighting in September 1992, and energy stocks accounted for just 1.9% of assets compared to almost 15% as of August 2008, when oil prices neared $150 per barrel.
Its top 10 holdings, which today include Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet, account for 23% of its assets, compared with 14% in 1992.