Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF has become the biggest ETF in the United States, but being the biggest has not made it the best performer in 2026. VOO held about $1.05 trillion in ETF assets as of
Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF has become the biggest ETF in the United States, but being the biggest has not made it the best performer in 2026.
VOO held about $1.05 trillion in ETF assets as of Aug. 31, after becoming the first ETF ever to cross the $1 trillion threshold in June. The fund charges just 0.03% and has returned roughly 14% year to date through early September.
Yet a tally shared by ETF Tracker shows 38 of Vanguard’s 116 U.S. ETFs outperforming VOO so far this year. That means roughly one-third of Vanguard’s lineup has beaten the fund that has become synonymous with low-cost S&P 500 investing. Vanguard itself lists 116 ETFs available in the U.S.
The stronger angle is not simply that some funds beat the S&P 500. It is where the outperformance is coming from.
Energy Leads as Market Leadership BroadensVanguard Energy ETF, or VDE, sits at the top of the list with a year-to-date gain of about 45.2% through Sept. 4, according to Vanguard and independent return data.
That is more than three times VOO’s roughly 14% gain.
The next strongest funds in ETF Tracker’s ranking were Vanguard FTSE Pacific ETF at about 31% and Vanguard Information Technology ETF at roughly 29%. Small-cap value, international stocks, emerging markets and dividend strategies also appeared ahead of VOO.
That mix matters because it suggests 2026 leadership has become much broader than a simple megacap S&P 500 trade.
Coinpaper’s recent look at equal-weight S&P 500 performance showed why breadth matters. Market-cap-weighted indexes give enormous influence to the largest companies, meaning a handful of megacaps can dominate returns.
VOO itself holds 505 stocks, but its weighting still heavily favors the biggest U.S. companies.
$1 Trillion Still Shows the Power of Passive InvestingNone of this weakens VOO’s dominance as an investment product.
VOO became the world’s largest ETF in February 2025 after overtaking SPY, then crossed $1 trillion in June following roughly $69 billion of 2026 inflows at the time. SPY and BlackRock’s IVV remained behind it.
The milestone reflects how deeply low-cost indexing has penetrated U.S. portfolios.
Coinpaper’s VTI vs VOO guide shows the attraction clearly: both charge 0.03%, while VOO provides simple exposure to roughly 500 large U.S. companies and VTI broadens that exposure to nearly the entire market.
But recent fund flows also show investors are becoming more selective. U.S. equity funds suffered $22.3 billion of withdrawals in one late-August week, while mid-cap and small-cap products continued attracting money. That large-cap selling fits the broader rotation visible inside Vanguard’s ETF lineup.
