Although artificial intelligence (AI) has been dominating the headlines on Wall Street for years, it's not the only trend that's powered the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite to new heights. Investor excitement surrounding stock splits has been an important catalyst for the broader market.
Last week, the first true blockbuster stock split of 2026 took place. Booking Holdings (BKNG +4.04%), the parent company of Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, and OpenTable, completed a mammoth 25-for-1 forward split and reduced its nominal share price from nearly $4,200 to around $168.
Investors won't have to wait long for the next blockbuster stock splits to take shape, courtesy of one of the world's largest issuers of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Vanguard.
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We're less than two weeks away from five monumental Vanguard ETF splits
An ETF contains a basket of securities that trades like a stock on an exchange and allows investors to diversify or concentrate their capital with a single purchase. If you want to own growth stocks, income stocks, large-, mid-, or small-cap companies, European stocks, or focus on a particular sector or industry, there's an ETF for that.
Vanguard offers 113 ETFs in the U.S., many of which feature net expense ratios below the industry average. If investors can hang onto more of their invested capital instead of it going toward management fees, they're more likely to choose Vanguard's ETFs as their investment vehicle.
On March 24, Vanguard announced that five of its U.S. ETFs, with a combined $724 billion in net assets, would undergo forward stock splits after the close of trading on April 20. This includes the:
- Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG +1.52%): 6-for-1 forward split
- Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK +1.44%): 5-for-1 forward split
- Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG +1.40%): 6-for-1 forward split
- Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO +1.43%): 4-for-1 forward split
- Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT +1.72%): 8-for-1 forward split
NYSEMKT: VGT
Key Data Points
The logical reason for Vanguard to conduct stock splits for these five ETFs is their storied track record of outperformance. Since their respective inceptions in January 2004, the Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF has gained 488%, while the tech- and AI-driven Vanguard Information Technology ETF has rallied approximately 1,360%.
Investors who lack access to fractional-share purchases currently need anywhere from $290 to $713 to purchase a single share of these five ETFs. The announced stock splits will reduce the share prices of all five ETFs below $100 and make them more nominally accessible for retail investors.
Lowering the nominal share prices of these five ETFs should also tighten the spread between the bid and ask (i.e., the price at which investors are willing to buy and sell an asset). As these ETFs have ascended to the heavens, the spread between their respective bids and asks has widened. By lowering their nominal share prices below $100, the bids and asks should narrow, leading to better entry and exit points for retail investors.
It's also possible that lower nominal share prices will lead to higher volume, spurring even more retail investor interest in these five successful ETFs.
We're less than two weeks away from a flurry of Vanguard ETFs taking the stock-split plunge.
