Vanguard US Total Market Shares Index ETF (ASX: VTS) is one of the most popular exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the ASX with it being nearly $1.5 billion in size.
Vanguard is a world leader in providing low-cost index accessibility for investors in shares of businesses, REITs and bonds.
Indeed, this ETF's annual management fee is only 0.04%. That's one of the cheapest on the ASX. The lower the costs the more of the returns are left for us.
This ETF is invested in thousands of US-listed businesses. At the end of September 2018 it gave exposure to 3,680 holdings. This means it provides excellent diversification. There are few ETFs that have as many holdings.
The returns have been very good with this ETF due to the strong underlying performance of the biggest holdings like Apple, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway. The performance for Aussie investors has also been helped by the weakening Australian dollar. Over the past five years it has returned an average of 19.41% per annum.
I like that you don't have to worry about which shares to buy and hold with this ETF, it just adjusts the position sizes itself.
However, you wouldn't buy this ETF for income. According to Vanguard, this ETF only has a dividend yield of 1.7%.
Foolish takeaway
If I were going to choose this ETF it would be for growth and better diversification, as I think it's better in those two areas than an ASX ETF.
The holdings of this Vanguard US ETF are nicely split between technology, financials, healthcare, consumer services, industrials and so on. Whereas the ASX index is weighted to financials and resource shares with limited growth prospects.
Many of this ETF's holdings are truly global businesses, so over the long-term I think this would be a better choice than Vanguard Australian Share ETF (ASX: VAS).
