2. Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSE:VOOG)
5-year Share Price Performance as of March 11: 93.60%
Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSE:VOOG) ranks 2nd on our list of the best Vanguard ETFs to buy. Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSE:VOOG) invests in stocks listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Growth Index, which includes growth-oriented companies within the S&P 500. The fund’s primary goal is to closely mirror the index’s return, serving as a benchmark for overall U.S. growth stock performance. As of December 22, 2023, Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSE:VOOG)’s expense ratio stands at 0.10%. Its portfolio consists of 226 stocks and the total net assets amount to $9.1 billion as of January 31, 2024.
Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSE:VOOG)’s top holdings include Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). On February 26, Citi expressed bullishness towards artificial intelligence as a critical thematic investing category. They highlighted specific stocks within the sector, with a particular focus on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). Citi emphasized their three-pronged approach, which includes seeking operating leverage, growth-at-a-reasonable-price, and confidence in top-line trajectories when evaluating investment opportunities in the AI sector.
According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 293 hedge funds were long Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), compared to 286 funds in the prior quarter. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 41.78 million shares worth $6.3 billion.
Polen Global Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which saw significant price appreciation throughout much of 2023, saw its share price increase materially in Q4 following the company’s Q3 2023 earnings report. We have yet to see the long-awaited re-acceleration in AWS (Amazon Web Services) revenue growth. However, in our estimation, the segment’s growth has likely bottomed, and we could see accelerating growth in 2024. Further, Amazon’s e-commerce business has gradually re-accelerated from 2022’s levels and, perhaps most importantly, the company’s margins and free cash flow have rebounded materially from last year. This rebound in margins and free cash flow at Amazon has been a key component of our long-term thesis for the business, and we expect the improvement in these metrics to continue into 2024 and beyond (though perhaps not linearly) as the company continues to optimize costs and capital expenditures. Our position in Amazon reflects our positive long-term expectations of the business, and it is currently our largest absolute weight in the Portfolio.”
