IMCG vs VOOG

IMCGAiShares Morningstar Mid-Cap Growth ETF

VOOGBVanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF

In short

IMCG Growth investing usually means megacaps. IMCG works the middle of the market instead: roughly 300 mid-cap growth names, indexed since 2004, for six basis points a year.

VOOG VOOG owns the growth half of the S&P 500: the same large caps you already know, re-sorted by sales growth, earnings-change-to-price and momentum. A style tilt built inside a familiar index, priced near the bottom of the growth shelf.

Stated mandate

IMCG The Fund seeks to track an index of U.S. mid-capitalization equities with growth characteristics. Its strategy uses representative sampling and generally invests at least 80% of assets in securities from the Underlying Index.

VOOG The fund aims to track the investment returns of large-cap growth stocks in the United States by following the S&P 500 Growth Index.

Why people hold it

• IMCG 0.06% a year, one third of the 0.18% median for its growth-fund peer group. Mid-cap indexing at large-cap-index prices.
• The growth leaderboard is stacked with large-cap funds (VUG, SCHG, SPYG, VONG). IMCG covers the middle instead, holding about 300 mid-cap growth names.
• Sticks close to the Morningstar mid-cap growth index it follows, one of the tighter tracking jobs in its peer group.
• Running since 2004 under the iShares roof, with a multi-billion-dollar asset base behind it.

• VOOG Costs 0.07% a year versus a 0.18% median for US growth funds. On a plain index slice, that gap is most of the argument.
• Every holding is already an S&P 500 member, ranked on three growth factors: sales growth, earnings change to price, and momentum. A slice of a known index, not a new universe.spglobal.comvanguard.com
• Straight index tracking, no active discretion, and one of the stronger implementations in its growth peer group. Vanguard has run it since 2010.vanguard.com
• A multi-billion-dollar, actively traded fund that pays quarterly, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.

Worth knowing

• IMCG Moderately traded rather than heavily traded, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the megacap growth ETFs sitting beside it in the category.
• This is a size-and-style bet. Mid-cap growth companies tend to move more sharply than the broad market, in both directions.
• Distributions land quarterly, but a growth screen is not built around income.

• VOOG SPYG tracks the same S&P 500 Growth Index for a lower fee. Identical index, different sticker.
• Not pure growth. S&P splits part of the parent index across both its growth and value benchmarks, so some names show up in both.spglobal.com
• About 210 names, weighted by market cap, so the largest positions drive most of the movement.spglobal.com

Full IMCG profile⁠

Full VOOG profile⁠