The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: Mr. Tummy Mustache on September 03, 2015, 02:33:21 PM
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Anyone have both VTSAX and VFIAX? Or a preference between the two? Only difference I see is VFIAX focuses on the top 500 stocks and VTSAX is all 3816 of them. Wondering why Vanguard would have two funds that are so similar.
I carry the VFIAX as my main holding. You are correct that there is little difference between their holdings because VTSAX is heavily weighted by the 500 largest companies (i.e. the same funds held in VFIAX).
As to why Vanguard would carry both of these funds, I don't see why they shouldn't. Yes they are similar, but 1) it costs Vanguard a negligible amount to offer both and 2) they satisfy slightly different AA needs, and allow a more particular investor to 'fine-tune' his or her portfolio.
For example, if you wanted broad-market coverage as your one and only stock, VFIAX is a great choice. Buy it an be done!
But let's suppose you want your AA to be 40% Large-cap US, 30% small-cap US and 30% emerging markets. Then you could do that easily by buying VFIAX (40%), NAESX (30%) and VEIEX (30%). That allows you to have more precise holdings.
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Vanguard offers both because there's a huge market for both. I don't really understand the desire to limit oneself to the top 500 companies as a core holding when you can own all of them for essentially the same expense ratio, but lots of people and 401(k) plans do it.
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I prefer VTSAX. The Total Stock Market offers more diversification, and the smaller companies have had decent returns in the past decade or so. The percentage difference between the returns is VERY minimal, as in about ~.10% last I checked.
Bottom line, either one is a good choice and better than nearly anything else available... but the total stock market fund is currently better by a tiny margin.