If you've got $500 burning a hole in your pocket and you're looking to invest it for many years in some promising stocks, consider the Vanguard Value ETF (VTV 1.20%). It's an index fund focused on value stocks, and if you're worried about a possible market correction or economic recession, it could be a great prospect for you.
Here's a closer look at the exchange-traded fund (ETF), how it invests its shareholder dollars, and its top holdings. (Remember that an ETF is a fund that trades like a stock, making it easy to get in and out of.)
Image source: Getty Images.
Meet the Vanguard Value ETF
The Vanguard Value ETF tracks the CRSP U.S. Large Cap Value Index, which measures the performance of large-capitalization value stocks. It determines which ones qualify as value stocks by assessing the following factors: price-to-book ratios, forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, price-to-dividend ratios, and price-to-sales ratios.
NYSEMKT: VTV
Key Data Points
Vanguard is known for low fees, among other things, and this ETF is no exception, sporting a tiny expense ratio (annual fee) of just 0.04%. So for every $10,000 you have invested in it, you'll pay only $4 per year in fees.
The table shows how the ETF has performed lately. I'm including the performance of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO 1.53%) as well for comparison.
|
Fund |
Five-Year Avg. Annual Return |
10-Year Avg. Annual Return |
15-Year Avg. Annual Return |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Vanguard Value ETF |
12.40% |
11.55% |
11.77% |
|
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF |
14.91% |
14.76% |
14.17% |
Data source: Morningstar.com, as of Dec. 9, 2025.
It's true that the S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.52%) ETF has outperformed the value ETF, but that's because it includes many growth stocks -- which can fall harder during market pullbacks than value stocks likely will. Consider, too, that a standard S&P 500 fund will have roughly 40% of its total value in just its top 10 holdings -- out of 500 holdings.
By the way, those top 10 will include companies such as Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Nvidia alone recently made up about 8.5% of the value of the S&P 500 index.
What's in the Vanguard Value ETF?
So what, then, is in the Vanguard Value ETF? Here are the ETF's recent top holdings:
|
Stock |
Percent of ETF |
|---|---|
|
JPMorgan Chase |
3.60% |
|
Berkshire Hathaway, Class B |
3.22% |
|
ExxonMobil |
2.12% |
|
Johnson & Johnson |
1.98% |
|
Walmart |
1.93% |
|
AbbVie |
1.68% |
|
Home Depot |
1.64% |
|
Procter & Gamble |
1.53% |
|
Bank of America |
1.39% |
|
UnitedHealth Group |
1.35% |
Data source: Vanguard.com. As of Oct. 31, 2025.
Notably, these top 10 holdings make up only about 20% of the value ETF, so it's far less concentrated.
A final plus for the Vanguard Value ETF is that it sports a meaningful dividend yield, recently 2.1%. That's a lot more than the S&P 500 recently yielded, which was 1.1%.
So if you're looking for a promising investment for your $500 -- or whatever sum you want to invest -- consider this Vanguard ETF. It offers a nice balance of growth and income.
