Index Fund wars! SPY vs VOO vs VTI vs IVV
By “Index Fund” I’m not just including traditional index funds (i.e. mutual funds) but I also mean ETFs — exchange-traded funds. Some of the most popular index funds track the S&P 500 (e.g. SPY, VOO, IVV)
In terms of expenses, SPY is the worst. In fact, SPY is only the best for trading because of liquidity. VOO and VTI are the bests in terms of expenses; Vanguard is usually ahead of the competition when it comes to expenses.
But what about VOO vs VTI? While some like VTI because it has some small-cap stocks, it is a small portion of the fund. Some will point out that VTI has more stocks so it adds diversification, but the fund is market-cap weighted.
All of these funds are just U.S. stocks. VXUS is a fund that tracks the entire international stock market — emerging + developed markets.
In addition to stocks, there are also bond index funds. For example, BND tracks the entire U.S. bond market — corporate bonds + treasury bonds.
Finally, you can find index funds that track real estate, public real estate. For…
