Vanguard Wellington Dividend Growth Active ETF

What this fund is

Vanguard Wellington Dividend Growth Active ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from Vanguard, traded under the ticker VDIG (ISIN US9219384032). One trade buys a whole basket of holdings, so your money is spread out instead of riding on a single company. In plain terms it is about owning small slices of companies, so you share in their growth when they do well — and their falls when they don't, spread across its target market. It follows the S&P U.S. Dividend Growers Index TR index (passive investing): it tracks the market rather than relying on a manager, keeping running costs down, and its largest holdings include Broadcom Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Eli Lilly & Co..

It holds around 34 positions (the ten largest ≈ 43%), spreading risk so no single holding decides your outcome. By geography it is weighted towards ~91% United States, ~4.3% Ireland and ~3.2% Switzerland. Its heaviest sectors are ~24.9% Financials and ~23% Technology. It is commonly used to tilt a portfolio towards one market, usually alongside broader, more global funds rather than on its own. Its ongoing charge (TER) is 0.4% a year — about €40 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund.

It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication); it is domiciled in the United States and trades in USD. Its price has swung about 11.3% over the past year — a gauge of how much the value moves, not a judgement of quality. As with any investment, its value can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to future results. (Fund data sourced from Vanguard.)