VFH: Vanguard Financials ETF

What does VFH hold?#

This fund owns shares of about 420 US financial companies, like banks and insurers. It holds only one part of the stock market, so it is less spread out. Its value can drop when banks and lenders run into trouble.

It tracks the MSCI US Investable Market Index (IMI)/Financials 25/50. It had 423 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VFH expense ratio?#

VFH charges 0.09% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.09% fee comes to about $9 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 VFH done since 2004?#

From January 2004 to October 2026, VFH returned about 6.7% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $43,632 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.

VFH returns by year#

What was VFH’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VFH’s worst fall was −78.6%, from June 4, 2007 to March 6, 2009. It got back to that high on November 11, 2016.

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 VFH?#

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

How does VFH compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for VFH:

• XLF: State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF, 0.08% a year
• VTV: Vanguard Morningstar Value ETF, 0.03% a year
• SCHV: Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF, 0.04% a year
• SPYV: State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value ETF, 0.04% a year

See all 6 VFH alternatives, compared on the same dates as VFH.

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