VUG: Vanguard Morningstar Growth ETF

What does VUG hold?#

This fund owns shares of large US companies whose earnings are growing, or are expected to grow, faster than average. These are called growth stocks. A few very large technology companies make up a big part of the fund.

It tracks the Morningstar US Large Cap Growth Index. It had 135 holdings as of September 30, 2026, according to Vanguard.

What is the VUG expense ratio?#

VUG 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.

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

How has VUG done since 2004?#

From January 2004 to October 2026, VUG returned about 12.1% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $134,384 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.

VUG returns by year#

What was VUG’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. VUG’s worst fall was −50.7%, from October 31, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on February 8, 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 VUG?#

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

• Papa Bear Portfolio (Muscular Portfolios), by Brian Livingston, 2018

How does VUG compare with similar ETFs?#

Side-by-side pages measure both funds over the same dates:

• VOO vs VUG: the S&P 500 against large US growth companies.

Funds that can stand in for VUG:

• SCHG: Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF, 0.04% a year
• SPYG: State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Growth ETF, 0.04% a year
• MGK: Vanguard Morningstar Mega Cap Growth ETF, 0.05% a year
• VONG: Vanguard Russell 1000 Growth ETF, 0.06% a year

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

Test VUG 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 VUG, 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 VUG. 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.