VPU: Vanguard Utilities ETF

What does VPU hold?#

This fund owns shares of about 70 US utility companies that provide electricity, gas, and water. It holds only one part of the stock market. Its ten biggest companies make up about half of the fund.

It tracks the MSCI US Investable Market Utilities 25/50 Index. It had 68 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VPU expense ratio?#

VPU 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 VPU done since 2004?#

From January 2004 to October 2026, VPU returned about 9.4% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $76,341 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.

VPU returns by year#

What was VPU’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VPU’s worst fall was −46.3%, from December 10, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on June 6, 2012.

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 VPU?#

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

How does VPU compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for VPU:

• XLU: State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF, 0.08% a year
• XLP: State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF, 0.08% a year
• VDC: Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF, 0.09% a year
• SCHH: Schwab U.S. REIT ETF, 0.07% a year

See all 7 VPU alternatives, compared on the same dates as VPU.

Test VPU 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 VPU, 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 VPU. 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.