IWD vs VTV

IWDAiShares Russell 1000 Value ETF

VTVAVanguard Morningstar Value ETF

In short

IWD The original Russell 1000 Value tracker, live since 2000 and still one of the most traded ways to own the value half of US large caps. Roughly 900 stocks, followed closely, at a price that reflects the plumbing.

VTV Value investing for three cents on every hundred dollars a year. Since 2004, VTV has run a passive, fully invested portfolio of roughly 300 large US companies that screen cheap, at a fee near the industry floor.

Stated mandate

IWD The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. large- and mid-cap stocks that may be undervalued relative to comparable companies.

VTV The fund seeks to track a large-capitalization U.S. value-stock benchmark through passive indexing and substantial replication of that index.

Why people hold it

• IWD Follows the Russell 1000 Value Index closely, one of the tightest index-following records among US value funds.
• About 900 large- and mid-cap names, so no single stock or sector drives the result.
• Trading since 2000 and actively traded, it is among the easier value ETFs to move in and out of, in size.

• VTV 0.03% a year, about a sixth of the 0.18% median for US value funds. Cost is the part of the outcome the fund actually controls.
• Same recipe, very different sticker: PRXV tracks the same declared value index and charges 0.36%, twelve times VTV's fee.
• Passively managed, full replication, fully invested. No manager hunches, no cash sitting idle, and the fund has tracked its benchmark closely.vanguard.com
• One of the largest and most actively traded funds in the US value aisle, the kind of scale that keeps bid-ask spreads thin for ordinary orders.

Worth knowing

• IWD At 0.18% a year, it costs more than several broad value rivals (VTV 0.03%, SCHV 0.04%, IUSV 0.04%). The extra buys the Russell index and the trading depth.
• Holding roughly 900 names out of a 1,000-stock parent index, the value tilt is wide and mild, not a concentrated deep-value bet.ishares.com
• Distributions land quarterly, and the amount rides on what the underlying companies pay.

• VTV Large caps only, about 300 of them. Cheap mid- and small-cap stocks live in separate funds (VOE, VTWV), so this is one slice of value, not the whole market.
• It is a value screen by design, so the priciest fast growers are largely filtered out. In growth-led stretches it can move very differently from a total-market fund.
• Income arrives quarterly, in four instalments rather than a monthly drip.

Full IWD profile⁠

Full VTV profile⁠