Jun 30th, 2009
What’s in My Portfolio: Vanguard Small Cap Exchange Traded Fund
Yes, another ETF in my Roth IRA from Vanguard. I’m not sure but there may be a few more of these, but I’ll go one at a time. This is the Vanguard Small Cap Exchange Traded Fund (VB). This is a small cap index fund, tracking the MCSI US Small Cap 1750 Index, and is the ETF equivalent of the Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund (NAESX).
Since this is in my Roth IRA, I have no tax concerns (notice a theme? I own almost everything in tax advantaged accounts, and the few things I do are either individual stocks I plan on owning for a long time or I series Savings Bonds which can have tax deferred for a long period of time). It’s less than a percent of my overall portfolio, so no overexposure issues here. It’s down for the year 13.75%, trailing the slightly above flat for the year S&P 500 badly. Costs are very low (yes, it’s Vanguard), and it pays a dividend yield, albeit a small one of 2.02%.
If you are interested in following a small cap index, you can do a lot worse than this ETF. I intend to hold onto this one for quite some time (yes, I’m boring in my investing–I rarely sell stuff). Look into this and other Vanguard ETFs at Vanguard’s Web site if you want more information on these funds.
I found a website that has detailed, unbiased info on small cap stocks: http://www.accreditedmembers.com/
A membership fee is required for access, but they’re offering free 30-day trials right now.