VTI vs VOO: Which One Is the Smarter Buy Today?

1 day ago 4

David Dierking, The Motley Fool

Tue, May 19, 2026 astatine 5:05 AM CDT 4 min read

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) and the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEMKT: VTI) are 2 of the astir well-known and wide invested funds successful the world. With combined assets of much than $1.6 trillion, they service arsenic the cornerstone of countless portfolios.

But the 2 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are not the same. Both connection market-cap weighted baskets of U.S. stocks, making them look and enactment precise similar. But the latter's inclusion of mid- and small-cap stocks could beryllium the differentiator that makes it the amended accidental astatine the moment.

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A mates looking astatine banal charts connected a tablet.

VTI and VOO are built otherwise

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF tracks the S&P 500, a handbasket of 500 of the largest U.S. stocks. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF follows the CRSP U.S. Total Market Index. Its purpose is to see virtually each investable U.S. banal determination is. It includes astir 3,500 companies crossed each marketplace caps.

Metric

VTI

VOO

Index it mirrors	CRSP U.S. Total Market Index	S&P 500
Holdings	3,494	505
Expense ratio	0.03%	0.03%
10-year annualized return	15.3%	15.8%
Dividend yield	1.1%	1.1%
Top sectors	Tech (39%) Consumer Discretionary (13%) Industrials (12%)	Tech (35%) Financials (12%) Communication Services (11%)
Top holdings	Nvidia (7.9%) Apple (6.5%) Microsoft (4.9%)	Nvidia (6.6%) Apple (5.7%) Microsoft (4.4%)

Data source: Vanguard.

Currently, there's astir 88% overlap of holdings, which is evidently wherefore the 2 funds execute truthful similarly. But the 10-year mean yearly instrumentality shows however smaller stocks person been a resistance connected show for a while. Which of the 2 ETFs volition excel going guardant depends astir wholly connected whether tiny caps tin outperform ample caps.

Why the existent situation favors VTI

U.S. banal marketplace show this year, particularly successful the tech sector, has been driven by beardown net growth. Years of hype person yet translated into accelerated gross and net growth. Not lone has that led to coagulated returns for investors, but it has besides meant that valuations person really been shrinking. Concerns astir banal valuations being costly haven't wholly gone away, but they've been mitigated implicit the past mates of quarters.

What makes the lawsuit for tiny caps (and by hold the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF) implicit the adjacent mates of years is that they're expected to yet enactment successful the net maturation expansion. In 2026, tiny caps are forecast to spot stronger net maturation than the S&P 500 for the archetypal clip successful years.

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