Vanguard Small Cap ETF

Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB) tracks the CRSP US Small Cap Index, giving holders a stake in 1,311 smaller US companies as of June 30, 2026. Its expense ratio, the yearly fee, is 0.03%, below all eight funds with the most similar holdings, which average 0.13%. It is also widely spread: the 10 largest stocks made up just 4.33% of assets, so no single company dominates.

• Over the year to Oct 30, 2026, VB returned +16.1%, 5th of 9 among similar funds.
• Its 5-year annualized return was +6.4%.
• Its worst full calendar year was 2022 (-17.5%); its best was 2023 (+18.2%).
• The deepest fall in its price history was 28.2% (Nov 8, 2021 to Jun 16, 2022), recovered by Jul 16, 2024.

As of Jun 30, 2026, the fund held 1,311 securities; the ten largest made up 4.33% of assets.

• Over the three months to Jun 30, 2026, investors withdrew a net $1.53B (creations minus redemptions, per the N-PORT report).
• Monthly total returns reported for that quarter: +8.63%, +3.20%, +3.50%.

VB is an exchange-traded share class of Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund, which had $188.7 billion in net assets across all share classes as of June 30, 2026. Rather than picking stocks, the fund uses an indexing approach, aiming to match the CRSP US Small Cap Index, a broad index of small US companies as the index provider defines them. Size here means market capitalization, the total market value of a company's shares.

It tries to replicate the index, holding all or nearly all of its stocks in roughly the same proportions, and under normal conditions invests at least 80% of net assets in them. As of June 30, 2026, it held 1,311 stocks, led by Credo Technology (0.55%), Jabil (0.49%) and Revolution Medicines (0.46%), plus four futures and swap contracts with a weight near zero. Holdings change as the index does; portfolio turnover, a gauge of how much of the fund is traded in a year, was 17%.

Individual investors trade VB shares on NYSE Arca at market prices, which can differ from the value of the fund's holdings. Only a limited number of financial firms, called authorized participants, can create or redeem shares directly with the fund, and they aren't obligated to. If they step back, that gap can widen.

• VB charges 0.03% a year, versus an average of 0.13% for the similar funds below (1st of 9, cheapest first).
• Of that, 0.02% is the management fee; the rest covers other fund expenses.
• Using the prospectus's standard example, $10,000 invested would cost about $3 in the first year and $39 over 10 years (assuming a 5% annual return).

A very low-cost, broad small-company index fund that can complement a large-company core, but it has swung harder, losing 30.08% in a single 2020 quarter.

VB could add smaller US companies often missing from large-company funds: 1,311 stocks as of June 30, 2026, at 0.03% a year, or $39 over 10 years on $10,000 in the SEC's standard example. Income is modest, with a trailing 12-month yield of 1.26% as of October 27, 2026, paid quarterly.

The catch is sharper swings. VB lost 30.08% in the first quarter of 2020 as COVID hit. Its deepest drop since mid-2020 was 28.2%, from November 2021 to June 2022, and it took about 25 months from that low to regain its old high. Calendar 2022 was its worst year from 2018 through 2025, a loss of 17.6%. The figures here start after the 2008 crisis. Cashing out shares for spending in such a stretch means locking in losses. Past results don't predict the future, and a sound plan looks at the whole portfolio, not one fund.

Matched by holdings overlap from the latest N-PORT reports.