This Groundbreaking Vanguard ETF Opened New Doors for Investors

2026-03-08 12:24:00 ET

Countless investors rely on exchange-traded funds to get the stock market exposure they want and need. For those seeking to track a market index composed of hundreds of stocks, it would be impractical to try to buy every single individual stock in the index and track it in your portfolio. ETFs made the job a lot easier, as the fund manager takes care of all that buying and selling for you. All you need to do is invest in shares of the ETF, pay a modest annual expense ratio, and earn the returns of whatever benchmark the fund has chosen to follow.

However, one key question that investors have to answer is just how much exposure to stocks they want. In order to diversify your portfolio properly, it's important to have a fund that owns more than just a few different stocks. Yet even if you do own a fund with hundreds of different holdings, you still have to ask yourself whether that ETF actually gives you complete exposure to all the different types of companies you want.

One Vanguard ETF took a step back and saw what many of its rivals' ETFs were concentrating their efforts on for investors. It chose to go a step further, and it has made all the difference for its shareholders. In this three-part series for the Voyager Portfolio , you'll learn more about the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEMKT: VTI) and how one simple decision marked a revolutionary change for the industry.

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