NEW YORK, Jan 21, 2026, 10:44 EST
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) climbed 0.85% to $337.97 in early trading Wednesday, rebounding after Tuesday’s steep tariff-fueled drop in U.S. shares. Other broad-market ETFs followed suit, with SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) gaining 0.7%, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) rising 0.8%, and iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT) also up 0.8%.
VTI is an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, that tracks the U.S. stock market in one shot, offering a quick snapshot of daily risk appetite. When politics disrupts trade and tariffs, broad index funds usually react sharply since they hold the entire market, not just a specific theme.
Wall Street suffered its sharpest one-day decline in three months Tuesday after President Donald Trump renewed tariff threats against European nations, linking the issue to talks over Greenland. The S&P 500 dropped 2.06%, the Nasdaq slid 2.39%, and the Dow fell 1.76%. Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group, said he’s not ready to label this a trigger for an equities market correction. 1
Stocks found their footing Wednesday after Trump, speaking at Davos, said he would not “use force” to acquire Greenland, though he pushed for talks. Some investors interpreted this as easing tensions. “That’s a sigh of relief for markets,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth. Still, he warned that worries linger about a potential “reigniting a trade war.” 2
TipRanks described VTI as a low-cost, broad-market fund with an expense ratio of just 0.03%, the annual fee the fund charges. It holds 3,467 stocks and manages $584.96 billion in assets. Over the past five days, VTI dropped 1.8% and has been roughly flat year-to-date. The fund also saw net inflows of $309 million over those five days, indicating more money flowed in than out. 3
TipRanks reported that VTI dropped 0.73% in premarket trading Tuesday. The firm noted five-day net inflows of $519 million and a year-to-date gain of 2%. Under its ETF analyst-consensus model, TipRanks gave VTI a “Moderate Buy” rating, reflecting a weighted average of analyst opinions on its holdings. The ETF’s average price target stands at $401.93. 4
TipRanks’ Jan. 19 data revealed VTI’s five-day net inflows at $745 million, holding the fund’s assets steady at $584.96 billion. This suggests investors kept buying despite volatile trading. The platform also gave VTI a “Smart Score” of eight, its proprietary metric predicting chances of outperformance, alongside an average price target of $401.90. 5
The bigger danger lies in trade talk morphing into policy, then retaliation—a cycle that could last well beyond one rough session. A Reuters report on market positioning noted that Trump’s Greenland-related tariff threat sparked fresh chatter about a “Sell America” trade, while also raising questions about a looming U.S. Supreme Court decision on the legality of his tariffs. Leonard Kwan, fixed income portfolio manager at T Rowe Price, said, “for the most part so far it would appear to be more noise than signal.” 6
Europe is now quantifying potential losses: Sweden’s Board of Trade warned that Swedish exports to the US could plunge by up to 28% if the proposed tariffs go ahead, with certain industrial sectors taking an even harder hit. For broad funds like VTI, this kind of fallout matters—since a drawn-out tariff dispute can dent growth and earnings far beyond the firms directly exporting. 7
