IVV vs VOO

IVVAiShares Core S&P 500 ETF

VOOAVanguard S&P 500 ETF

In short

IVV The 2000-vintage iShares take on the S&P 500, now a $100B-plus cornerstone holding: roughly 500 large US companies, 0.03% a year, and tracking that stays tight to the index.

VOO Not a standalone ETF but a share class of Vanguard's flagship 500 Index Fund: the same roughly 500 large US companies, 0.03% a year, in a wrapper you can trade all day.

Stated mandate

IVV The fund seeks to track the investment results of an index made up of large-capitalization U.S. equities.

VOO The fund invests in stocks represented by the S&P 500 Index and seeks to closely track that index's return as a measure of overall U.S. stock performance.

Why people hold it

• IVV Costs 0.03% a year, a fraction of the typical fee among S&P 500 trackers, and undercuts the category's founding fund (SPY, 0.09%) on the same index.
• Tracking is the whole job, and it does it about as tightly as this peer group gets: roughly 500 large US companies, no manager discretion bolted on.
• A $100B-plus fund that trades heavily all session, which is what keeps bid-ask spreads thin for retail-sized orders and institutional blocks alike.
• Running since 2000 as a registered open-end fund, with quarterly distributions and one of the longest live records in the S&P 500 aisle.ishares.com

• VOO 0.03% a year against a 0.15% median for S&P 500 trackers. On a fund this size, that fee gap is the whole product.
• Holds the index outright, all roughly 500 names, and its tracking record sits among the tightest in the S&P 500 group.investor.vanguard.com
• One of the most actively traded ETFs in the market, which tends to keep the cost of getting in and out small.
• It is the ETF share class of Vanguard's 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard is owned by its own funds, so no outside parent takes a cut.personal1.vanguard.comsec.gov

Worth knowing

• IVV Pure US large cap. No mid caps, no small caps, nothing overseas, so it works as one slab of a portfolio rather than the whole thing.
• It rides the index in both directions: when the S&P 500 has an ugly year, this has the same ugly year, minus the fee.
• A near-identical rival shaves a basis point (SPYM at 0.02%). On $10,000 that gap is about a dollar a year, so structure and trading habits matter more.

• VOO Large US companies only, weighted by size, so the biggest few names carry the most weight and drive much of the move.spglobal.com
• Membership is not purely mechanical: an S&P index committee decides which companies come in and go out.spglobal.com
• SPYM tracks the same index for 0.02%. A rounding error for most, but real if cost is your only tiebreaker.

Full IVV profile⁠

Full VOO profile⁠