Vanguard Value ETF

What this fund is

Vanguard Value ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from Vanguard, traded under the ticker VTV (ISIN US9229087443). 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 Spliced Value Index index (passive investing): it tracks the market rather than relying on a manager, keeping running costs down, and its largest holdings include Micron Technology Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B.

Spread across roughly 309 holdings (the ten largest ≈ 22.6%), no one position makes or breaks the fund. Geographically it leans ~94.4% United States, ~3.9% Ireland and ~0.6% Switzerland. Its heaviest sectors are ~21.7% Financials and ~15.8% 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 0.03% a year — about €3 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 10.4% 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.)