Investment approach

Indexing

Building low-cost, diversified portfolios

Overview

Index funds and ETFs: Start with the core

When you're constructing portfolios for your clients, using low-cost index funds and ETFs can serve as the foundation for any investment strategy. These offer an ideal way to achieve broad diversification and can be easily positioned to help meet your clients' risk and return requirements.

Since index funds seek to track market returns, client conversations about setting performance expectations are much simpler. Additionally, index-based investment strategies typically are highly tax-efficient vehicles with minimal portfolio turnover, which can help reduce your clients' tax burden.

Why Vanguard?

Vanguard launched the first index fund for individual investors in 1976—and we've been perfecting our benchmark selection and tracking skills every day since. In fact, since we pioneered indexing, equity index funds across the industry now have more assets under management than actively managed funds, with fixed income index-based assets growing quickly.

Over the past four-plus decades, we've built a sustainable, scaled, and successful index franchise. We aim to be a partner you can count on, day in and day out, for tight tracking of the markets important to you and your clients. This unmatched expertise, along with our commitment to advisors, is why Vanguard remains the choice for sophisticated indexing.

Fund classes

119

Equity index products

From large-cap to small-cap to international, our lineup covers them all

42

Fixed income index products

Bond ETFs and funds for nearly every part of the fixed income market

Portfolio construction

Learn more about our rigorous benchmark selection process and gain insights into the various methodologies used by the index providers for our equity and fixed income ETFs.

Vanguard equity index ETFs

Vanguard fixed income index ETFs

Related tools

Use our tools for reliable, objective data for Vanguard and non-Vanguard products, including ETFs and mutual funds from any fund family. Independent analysis by Morningstar provides unbiased results.

ESG pattern image

Portfolio Analytics

Create and evaluate client portfolios. Analyze hypothetical performance risk statistics, country diversification, and asset allocation, and more.

ESG pattern image

Compare products

Direct product comparison of up to five products in a convenient side-by-side layout. Generate custom, client-ready PDFs and easily email the online comparisons.

Disclosures and footnotes

For more information about Vanguard funds, visit advisors.vanguard.com or call 800-997-2798 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

All investing is subject to risk, including possible loss of principal. Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

Bond funds are subject to interest rate risk, which is the chance bond prices overall will decline because of rising interest rates, and credit risk, which is the chance a bond issuer will fail to pay interest and principal in a timely manner or that negative perceptions of the issuer's ability to make such payments will cause the price of that bond to decline.

We recommend that you consult a tax professional about your individual situation.