VBR: Vanguard Morningstar Small-Cap Value ETF

What does VBR hold?#

This fund owns shares of hundreds of small US companies that look cheap compared with measures like their earnings or sales. Small company stocks can rise and fall more than large company stocks. Its value goes up and down with this group of companies.

It tracks the Morningstar US Small Cap Value Index. It had 820 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VBR expense ratio?#

VBR charges 0.05% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.05% fee comes to about $5 a year.

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

How has VBR done since 2004?#

From January 2004 to October 2026, VBR returned about 9.4% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $77,179 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

Prices through October 16, 2026. Figures use daily closing prices adjusted for splits, with dividends reinvested. They do not include taxes or the cost of buying and selling. Past results do not tell you what will happen next.

VBR returns by year#

What was VBR’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VBR’s worst fall was −62.0%, from June 4, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on February 14, 2011.

The chart shows how far below its last high the fund was on each day. Big drops are normal for some funds. They matter because selling during a drop locks in the loss.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold VBR?#

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

• Golden Butterfly Portfolio, by Tyler (Portfolio Charts), 2015

How does VBR compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for VBR:

• IJS: iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value ETF, 0.18% a year
• IWN: iShares Russell 2000 Value ETF, 0.24% a year
• AVUV: Avantis U.S. Small Cap Value ETF, 0.25% a year
• SCHA: Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF, 0.03% a year

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

Test VBR 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 VBR, 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 VBR. 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.

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.