New York, June 5, 2026, 13:01 EDT
- Vanguard Growth ETF lost around 2.7% Friday. That came after a Zacks note pointed to its 27.64% gain over the past year and its 0.03% fee.
- The focus in ETF coverage this week is moving away from returns to how concentrated the funds are. VUG, VONG and QQQ all have big exposure to large tech names, but VBK holds smaller stocks for more diversification.
- Passive investing in focus after Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF crossed the $1 trillion mark in assets this week, the first ETF to hit that milestone.
Vanguard Growth ETF slipped Friday, down roughly 2.7% to $86.79 around midday in New York. The drop came as tech stocks led a selloff, weighing on one of the market’s biggest and lowest-cost large-cap growth funds. Invesco QQQ Trust was off 3.4%, and Vanguard Russell 1000 Growth ETF gave up 2.3%.
ETF stories picked up again this week, putting growth funds in focus for investors. That timing ran into a few headwinds, with bond yields up, a hotter jobs number, and chip stocks sliding. Reuters said U.S. payrolls climbed by 172,000 in May, much higher than the 85,000 forecast, sending rate-hike expectations higher.
Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF (VOO) hit $1 trillion in assets this week, becoming the first ETF to reach that size. The fund topped State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 ETF less than 18 months ago. “Investors continue to turn to low-cost broad market exposure,” Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, told Reuters. Reuters
VUG trades on the market as an exchange-traded fund, bundling large-cap growth stocks—firms with above-average sales and earnings gains and usually richer price tags. Zacks, via Sharewise, had VUG’s annual expense ratio at 0.03%, with a 0.37% yield over the last 12 months and a Zacks ETF Rank of 2, or Buy.
But the fund isn’t a neutral market play. According to Zacks, information technology is about 57.3% of VUG, with big weights in Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, and the top 10 holdings make up 53.63% of its assets. That’s where the trade and the risk sit.
QQQ is the other case here. A Motley Fool piece picked up by Yahoo Finance said Invesco’s ETF returned 578.6% in the last 10 years through the end of April, topping the S&P 500 seven times out of 10. Invesco says QQQ follows the Nasdaq-100, which is made up of the 100 biggest non-financial names on Nasdaq.
Motley Fool compared two Vanguard funds, VONG and VBK. VONG holds big tech stocks, VBK tracks smaller growth names. The piece said VBK gained 32.80% in the past 12 months as of June 3, topping VONG’s 25.70%. Fees are 0.05% for VBK, just below VONG’s 0.06%.
Vanguard’s March fact sheets lay out what splits the two funds. VONG had 387 stocks, tech made up 59.5% of assets, and its top 10 names were 60.7% of the fund. VBK, by comparison, held 550 stocks, the top 10 at just 8.4%. Its sector mix was led by industrials, tech, and health care.
Broader diversification didn’t help much on Friday. VBK was down 3.6% at $343.70, a bigger fall than VUG or VONG, while Nvidia, which is held in many growth ETFs, lost about 5.3%. Reuters reported chip stocks have been key to the market’s move up since March, but the Philadelphia chip index slipped after its run higher.
Low fees might not protect investors if the stocks behind the rally turn lower. Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital, told Reuters the speed of the AI-fueled rally was “like a race car at high speed: ‘It doesn’t take much to cause an accident at that speed.’” Reuters
Right now, the options are lined up. VUG and VONG give low-fee access to big U.S. growth stocks. QQQ leans hard into the Nasdaq names. VBK takes a broader shot at smaller companies. But the big question traders are facing isn’t as simple—will investors keep paying for growth if rates keep climbing?
