For more information about Vanguard funds or Vanguard ETFs, visit vanguard.com to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

Be aware that fluctuations in the financial markets and other factors may cause declines in the value of your account. There is no guarantee that any particular asset allocation or mix of funds will meet your investment objectives or provide you with a given level of income. Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

Bond funds are subject to the risk that an issuer will fail to make payments on time, and that bond prices will decline because of rising interest rates or negative perceptions of an issuer's ability to make payments.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. The performance of an index is not an exact representation of any particular investment, as you cannot invest directly in an index.

Size and performance claims

Source of claim that Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is the world’s largest: Morningstar Direct, as of July 31, 2023.

For the five-year period ended June 30, 2023, 48 of Vanguard’s 52 actively managed bond funds (92%) outperformed their peer group averages; for the five-year period ended March  31, 2023, 86 of Vanguard’s 111 bond funds (77%), including actively managed and indexed funds, outperformed their peer group averages; results will vary for other time periods (source: Lipper, a Thomson Reuters Company). Only funds with a minimum five-year history were included in the comparison. Note that the competitive performance data shown represent past performance, which is not a guarantee of future results, and that all investments are subject to risks. For the most recent performance, visit vanguard.com/performance.

For the three-year period ended June 30, 2023, 47 of Vanguard’s 54 actively managed funds (87%) outperformed their benchmark indexes net of fees; results will vary for other time periods. Only funds with a minimum three-year history were included in the comparison. Source: Vanguard.

Money market mutual funds and bank deposits

Money market mutual funds incur operating expenses. Expense ratios represent their annual operating costs, which are paid out of fund assets before any returns are paid to shareholders.

The SEC yield on a money market fund is the average amount earned by the fund’s investors (after expenses) over the past 7 days, multiplied into an annual figure. APY is the total interest earned on a bank product in one year, assuming no funds are added or withdrawn. SEC yields do not account for compounding, which makes them seem lower when compared to APYs. To account for that, money market funds also report a “compound yields,” which can be compared with APYs.

Bank deposits are guaranteed (within limits) as to principal and interest by an agency of the federal government. Relative to money market mutual funds, bank deposits can offer more liquidity, ATM access, and overdraft protection. Each company's products differ, so it's important to understand account features, minimums, and potential withdrawal fees. You should consider all material differences before choosing to invest.

Projected returns for global balanced portfolios and asset classes

IMPORTANT: The projections and other information generated by the Vanguard Capital Markets Model® (VCMM) regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. Distribution of return outcomes from VCMM are derived from 10,000 simulations for each modeled asset class. Simulations as of June 30, 2023. Results from the model may vary with each use and over time.

The VCMM projections are based on a statistical analysis of historical data. Future returns may behave differently from the historical patterns captured in the VCMM. More important, the VCMM may underestimate extreme negative scenarios unobserved in the historical period on which the model estimation is based. 

The VCMM is a proprietary financial simulation tool developed and maintained by Vanguard’s primary investment research and advice teams. The model forecasts distributions of future returns for a wide array of broad asset classes. Those asset classes include U.S. and international equity markets, several maturities of the U.S. Treasury and corporate fixed income markets, international fixed income markets, U.S. money markets, commodities, and certain alternative investment strategies. The theoretical and empirical foundation for the VCMM is that the returns of various asset classes reflect the compensation investors require for bearing different types of systematic risk (beta). At the core of the model are estimates of the dynamic statistical relationship between risk factors and asset returns, obtained from statistical analysis based on available monthly financial and economic data from as early as 1960. Using a system of estimated equations, the model then applies a Monte Carlo simulation method to project the estimated interrelationships among risk factors and asset classes as well as uncertainty and randomness over time. The model generates a large set of simulated outcomes for each asset class over several time horizons. Forecasts are obtained by computing measures of central tendency in these simulations. Results produced by the tool will vary with each use and over time.