Should Vanguard S&P Mid-Cap 400 ETF (IVOO) Be on Your Investing Radar?

The Vanguard S&P Mid-Cap 400 ETF (IVOO) was launched on 09/09/2010, and is a passively managed exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the Mid Cap Blend segment of the US equity market.

The fund is sponsored by Vanguard. It has amassed assets over $2.70 billion, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the Mid Cap Blend segment of the US equity market.

Why Mid Cap Blend

Compared to large and small cap companies, mid cap businesses tend to have higher growth prospects and are less volatile, respectively, with market capitalization between $2 billion and $10 billion. Thus, companies that fall under this category provide a stable and growth-heavy investment.

Blend ETFs usually hold a mix of growth and value stocks as well as stocks that exhibit both value and growth characteristics.

Costs

When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts in the long term if all other factors remain equal.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.07%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.40%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation to the Industrials sector--about 22.80% of the portfolio. Financials and Consumer Discretionary round out the top three.

Looking at individual holdings, Interactive Brokers Group Inc (IBKR) accounts for about 0.81% of total assets, followed by Emcor Group Inc (EME) and Duolingo Inc (DUOL).

The top 10 holdings account for about 4.87% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

IVOO seeks to match the performance of the S&P MidCap 400 Index before fees and expenses. The S&P MidCap 400 Index measures the performance of the mid-cap segment of the U.S. equity universe. The Index is a capitalization-weighted index composed of 400 domestic common stocks.

The ETF return is roughly 0.17% so far this year and was up about 7.78% in the last one year (as of 07/01/2025). In the past 52-week period, it has traded between $86.58 and $115.08.

The ETF has a beta of 1.05 and standard deviation of 19.68% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 407 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

Vanguard S&P Mid-Cap 400 ETF holds a Zacks ETF Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Because of this, IVOO is an excellent option for investors seeking exposure to the Style Box - Mid Cap Blend segment of the market. There are other additional ETFs in the space that investors could consider as well.

The Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) and the iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF (IJH) track a similar index. While Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF has $82.60 billion in assets, iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF has $94.75 billion. VO has an expense ratio of 0.04% and IJH charges 0.05%.

Bottom-Line

Retail and institutional investors increasingly turn to passively managed ETFs because they offer low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency; these kind of funds are also excellent vehicles for long term investors.

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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