Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF (VCIT)

How has VCIT done since 2009?#

From November 2009 to October 2026, VCIT returned about 4.0% a year. The S&P 500 returned about 14.1% a year over the same dates. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $19,504 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

VCIT returns by month and year#

VCIT rose in 129 of its 204 months (63%). Its best month was November 2023, at 5.9%. Its worst was March 2020, at −7.3%.

How risky is VCIT compared with the S&P 500?#

Measured from October 2021 to October 2026, on the days both traded.

• Beta 0.14. When the S&P 500 moved 1% in a day, VCIT tended to move about 0.14%.
• Correlation 0.36. VCIT moved mostly on its own, apart from the S&P 500.
• Up and down months. In months the S&P 500 rose, VCIT rose 29% as much on average. In months it fell, VCIT fell 47% as much.

Is VCIT above its 200-day average?#

VCIT closed 1.9% below its 200-day average on October 16, 2026. A rule that holds VCIT only above that average would be out of it today.

What was VCIT’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VCIT’s worst fall was −20.6%, from August 3, 2021 to October 20, 2022. It got back to that high on July 29, 2025. On October 16, 2026 it was 3.7% below its highest close.

What does VCIT hold?#

This fund owns thousands of bonds that companies sell in US dollars, all rated investment grade, meaning they are seen as likely to be paid back. Most of the bonds come due in about 5 to 10 years. Company bonds usually pay more interest than US government bonds but carry more risk that a company will not pay.

It tracks the Bloomberg U.S. 5-10 Year Corporate Bond Index. It had 2,342 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VCIT expense ratio?#

VCIT charges 0.03% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.03% fee comes to about $3 a year. Of the 162 ETFs on Tactfolio, 85% charge more.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold VCIT?#

One classic strategy holds VCIT at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Paul Novell’s Tactical Bond Strategy, by Paul Novell, 2014

How does VCIT compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for VCIT:

• LQD: iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF, 0.14% a year
• AGG: iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, 0.03% a year
• BND: Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF, 0.03% a year
• SCHZ: Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, 0.03% a year

See all 8 VCIT alternatives, compared on the same dates as VCIT.

Test VCIT in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add VCIT, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for VCIT and SPY. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Beta and correlation compare daily returns with the S&P 500 over the same dates.

Fund facts come from Vanguard. We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.