Vanguard Morningstar Mid-Cap ETF (VO)

How has VO done since 2004?#

From January 2004 to October 2026, VO returned about 10.2% a year. The S&P 500 returned about 10.8% a year over the same dates. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $90,144 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

VO returns by month and year#

VO rose in 169 of its 273 months (62%). Its best month was April 2009, at 14.2%. Its worst was October 2008, at −22.0%.

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

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

• Beta 0.95. When the S&P 500 moved 1% in a day, VO tended to move about 0.95%.
• Correlation 0.92. VO mostly moved with the S&P 500.
• Up and down months. In months the S&P 500 rose, VO rose 87% as much on average. In months it fell, VO fell 110% as much.

Is VO above its 200-day average?#

VO closed 3.5% above its 200-day average on October 16, 2026. A rule that holds VO only above that average would hold it today.

What was VO’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VO’s worst fall was −58.9%, from July 13, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on February 8, 2011. On October 16, 2026 it was 4.8% below its highest close.

What does VO hold?#

This fund owns shares of a few hundred medium-sized US companies. These companies are bigger than small firms but smaller than the giants. Their prices can swing more than the prices of the largest companies.

It tracks the Morningstar US Mid Cap Index. It had 271 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VO expense ratio?#

VO 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 VO?#

No classic strategy holds VO yet. You can add it to your own rules in the builder and see how they would have done.

How does VO compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for VO:

• SCHM: Schwab U.S. Mid-Cap ETF, 0.03% a year
• IJH: iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF, 0.05% a year
• IWR: iShares Russell Mid-Cap ETF, 0.18% a year
• MDY: State Street SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF Trust, 0.23% a year

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

Test VO 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 VO, 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 VO 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 17, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.