Vanguard Core-Plus Bond ETF
$74.75−0.63 (−0.83%)
- Expense ratio
- 0.20%
- Fund size
- $1.9B
- 1Y return
- +0.6%
- Yield · Last 12 months
- 4.87%
- Volume · 30D
- 0.2M sh
- NAV per share
- $75.26
- 52W range
The ETF.net VPLS Grade
Score 75 of 100 sits in the A band. Bands: A ≥ 70, B ≥ 55, C ≥ 40, D ≥ 25, F < 25; the scale skips E.
Cost
What you pay to own it — the expense ratio plus trading frictions, ranked within its category.AScore 71Category rankMission
How faithfully it does the job it claims — tracking its mandate or index with minimal slippage.AScore 100Category rankRisk
How violently it can move — volatility, drawdown depth, and downside capture versus its category.BScore 58Category rankTradability
How cheaply and easily you can get in and out — liquidity, spread, and premium/discount stability.BScore 56Category rankHoldings
What it actually owns — the quality, breadth, and concentration of the underlying portfolio.AScore 90Category rankDurability
Whether it will still be here — the fund’s assets, age, flows, and issuer staying power.BScore 66Category rank
Our read on VPLS
AVanguard's active bond desk in an ETF wrapper. The "plus" is permission to roam past U.S. investment grade into high yield and emerging market debt, benchmarked to the broader Universal index instead of the plain Agg, for 0.20% a year.
The fund seeks total return and moderate to high current income. It invests mainly in investment-grade U.S. bonds, with selective below-investment-grade and foreign debt exposure, including emerging markets, and is actively managed.
Why people hold it
- 0.20% a year for an actively run bond book, comfortably under the 0.36% median for broad bond ETFs. Vanguard's fixed income team, at index-adjacent money.corporate.vanguard.com
- The "plus" is the point: Treasuries, agency mortgages and investment-grade credit at the core, plus room for high yield and emerging market debt the plain Agg skips.institutional.vanguard.com
- Well over a thousand bonds, so no single issuer moves the needle much, and cash goes out monthly rather than quarterly.
- Does what its prospectus says it does, and sits in the top quartile of the broad bond group.
Worth knowing
- Index Aggs like BND, SPAB and SCHZ charge 0.03%. The gap buys a human team's judgment, which can land behind the benchmark as easily as ahead.
- The high yield and emerging market sleeve carries credit risk a pure investment-grade fund does not, and those are the bonds that wobble when investors turn defensive.fund-docs.vanguard.com
- Moderately traded rather than a giant of the bond aisle, and it launched in 2023, so there is less history behind it than the long-running index Aggs.
VPLS Holdings
- Bonds
- —
- 8%
- MKTLIQ 12/31/2049
Sectors
- Materials82.6%
- Health Care17.4%
VPLS Performance
Shows how $10,000 changes over the selected period, with cash distributions reinvested at the closing price on each ex-dividend date.
Returns run to the Sep 22, 2026 close, with cash distributions reinvested. Each period starts on the same date that many months or years earlier. Periods over one year show the average yearly return.
| Period | VPLS |
|---|---|
| Year to date | −0.6% |
| 1 month | −0.9% |
| 3 months | −1.4% |
| 1 year | +0.6% |
| 3 years | — |
| 5 years | — |
| 10 years | — |
Calendar-year total return with cash distributions hypothetically reinvested at the ex-dividend date’s closing price. The current year shows year to date.
| Year | Return bar | VPLS |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 YTD | −0.6% | |
| 2025 | +7.8% | |
| 2024 | +2.7% | |
| 2023 | +2.8% |
VPLS in the news
ETF.net Research hasn’t filed on VPLS yet — coverage lands here as it’s written.
VPLS Dividends
- 4.87%
- $3.67
- $0.30 per share
- Monthly
Distribution history
| Ex-date | Pay date | Amount per share |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2026 | Sep 3, 2026 | $0.30 |
| Aug 3, 2026 | Aug 5, 2026 | $0.31 |
| Jul 1, 2026 | Jul 6, 2026 | $0.29 |
| Jun 1, 2026 | Jun 3, 2026 | $0.29 |
| May 1, 2026 | May 5, 2026 | $0.28 |
| Apr 1, 2026 | Apr 6, 2026 | $0.29 |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Mar 4, 2026 | $0.26 |
| Feb 2, 2026 | Feb 4, 2026 | $0.29 |
| Dec 18, 2025 | Dec 22, 2025 | $0.50 |
| Dec 1, 2025 | Dec 3, 2025 | $0.29 |
| Nov 3, 2025 | Nov 5, 2025 | $0.29 |
| Oct 1, 2025 | Oct 3, 2025 | $0.28 |
VPLS Risk
- 4.1%
How it’s calculated: standard deviation
The sample standard deviation of monthly total returns, multiplied by the square root of 12.
Uses up to 36 complete months, with at least 12 required. Total returns include reinvested distributions.
- −0.09
How it’s calculated: Sharpe ratio
Subtract each month’s Treasury-bill return from the fund’s monthly total return.
Divide the average of those excess returns by their sample standard deviation, then multiply by the square root of 12.
Uses up to 36 complete months, with at least 12 required. Each month uses the Treasury yield quoted at the end of the previous month.
- −4.2%
How it’s calculated: maximum drawdown
The largest percentage decline from an earlier peak, using total returns with reinvested distributions.
Uses up to five years through the last close, with at least 12 months required.
- 0.14
How it’s calculated: beta
The beta figure is supplied by FMP. The comparison index depends on the fund’s broad asset class.
VPLS Cost
- The middle half of US Aggregate Bond funds
- Median 0.34%
31 of the 112 US Aggregate Bond funds charge less.