3. Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (CBOE:ESGV)
5-year Share Price Performance as of March 11: 86.05%
Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (CBOE:ESGV) aims to replicate the performance of the FTSE US All Cap Choice Index, a market-cap-weighted index that includes large, mid, and small-cap stocks. Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (CBOE:ESGV) screens for environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) criteria, excluding stocks related to industries such as adult entertainment, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and others. It also excludes companies that fail to meet labor, human rights, environmental, anti-corruption standards defined by the UN Global Compact Principles, as well as certain diversity criteria. The fund employs a passively managed, full-replication approach. As of December 22, 2023, Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (CBOE:ESGV)’s expense ratio stands at 0.09%. The fund’s portfolio consists of 1464 stocks and its net assets amount to $7.6 billion as of January 31, 2024.
One of Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (CBOE:ESGV)’s top holdings is NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). On February 21, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported a Q4 non-GAAP EPS of $5.16 and a revenue of $22.1 billion, outperforming Wall Street estimates by $0.52 and $1.55 billion, respectively.
According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 173 hedge funds were long NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), compared to 180 funds in the last quarter. Rajiv Jain’s GQG Partners is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 13.90 million shares worth $6.8 billion.
SaltLight Capital stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“We were fortunate to have some exposure to some of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – Amazon, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Meta Platforms and Google (although in aggregate, we still hold a smaller weighting than the S&P 500).
While we are cautious in AI infrastructure, we do think there are mispriced opportunities in areas of application software where AI can be infused to make a step change improvement. Posted in our office is this chart that ASML provides at each of its investor days. This chart is a little outdated from 2021, but we think illustrates how value (in operating profit) was distributed across semiconductors, hardware, and then software & services. It’s very clear that most of the economic value in the past has accrued to the software services (in gray) built on the backs of highly technical companies run by extremely smart people.
Why is this? We think it is due to a combination of distribution and network effects. Our working hypothesis right now is that this will likely remain a similar outcome in the AI epoch. One outlier right now is Nvidia which is capturing 80% margins..” (Click here to read the full text)
