QMID vs VUG

QMIDCWisdomTree U.S. MidCap Quality Growth Fund

VUGAVanguard Morningstar Growth ETF

In short

QMID Plenty of mid-cap growth funds buy growth and hope profits follow. QMID ranks mid-caps on both, blending earnings and sales growth with return on equity and assets, then keeps only the top-scoring 30% and bars real estate, utilities and banks outright.

VUG Three basis points buys roughly 170 US large-cap growth names. Running since 2004, over $100 billion in assets, and it tracks its index about as closely as an index fund can.

Stated mandate

QMID QMID seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the WisdomTree U.S. MidCap Quality Growth Index. It uses passive indexing and generally representative sampling to pursue that objective.

VUG The fund seeks to track a benchmark index measuring the investment return of large-capitalization growth stocks.

Why people hold it

• QMID Two screens, not one: the index scores companies on growth (analyst forecasts plus trailing 3-year earnings and sales growth) and quality (trailing 3-year ROE and ROA), then takes the top 30%.wisdomtree.com
• Real estate, utilities and banks are ineligible by rule, a deliberate swerve around the mid-cap corners WisdomTree flags for slower growth and lumpier earnings.wisdomtree.comwisdomtree.com 2
• High-conviction by construction: roughly 130 stocks, market-cap weighted, rescreened each May and November. Narrower than the sprawling mid-cap growth benchmarks.wisdomtree.com
• Straightforward plumbing: a passive 1940 Act fund that samples its own published index, with the rulebook public rather than left to manager judgment.

• VUG 0.03% a year against a 0.18% median for its growth peer group. A rival tracking the same declared index charges 0.36%, twelve times more for the same shopping list.vanguard.com
• One of the largest and most heavily traded funds in US large-cap growth, and among the tightest index implementations in that group. Deep volume tends to mean thin spreads.
• Trading since January 2004, so the record spans full market cycles rather than a backtest. Distributions land quarterly.

Worth knowing

• QMID You pay for the screen. The 0.38% expense ratio sits above the growth-cohort median of 0.18%, and index rivals like IMCG charge 0.06%.
• Still a small, thinly traded fund since its 2024 launch. Spreads can be wider than the mega-funds in the category, which makes limit orders the sane default.
• WisdomTree classes the fund as non-diversified, so a single holding can move it more than a broader basket would.wisdomtree.com

• VUG Cap-weighted, so the biggest mega-caps dominate the top of the book. That makes it one of the more concentrated portfolios in this cohort.vanguard.com
• A style sleeve, not the whole market: growth screens only, large caps only. When growth is out of favor it can swing harder than a total-market fund.
• SPYG and SCHG sit at 0.04%, so the price edge is a rounding error. The real gap is how each index defines a growth stock.

Full QMID profile⁠

Full VUG profile⁠