Attribution Analysis of US Mutual Funds through November 2015
Vanguard Growth Index Fund
The Vanguard Growth Index Fund – Investor Shares (VIGRX) is an index fund, which means that it passively tracks an index and is not actively managed. Its management notes that it is “designed to track the performance of the CRSP US Large Cap Growth Index, a broadly diversified index predominantly made up of growth stocks of large U.S. companies. The Fund attempts to replicate the target index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index, holding each stock in approximately the same.”
As of the end of November 2015, the Vanguard Growth Index Fund’s benchmark index comprised 362 stock holdings, and it was invested in 365 stocks. It managed assets worth $50.91 billion as of the end of November.
As of the November portfolio, its equity holdings included The Coca-Cola Company (KO), Philip Morris International, Inc. (PM), McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), 3M Company (MMM), and AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), comprising a combined 6.5% of the fund’s equity holdings.
Historical portfolios
Investors should remember that VIGRX is an index tracking fund. When we talk about its portfolio details, we’re essentially discussing the underlying index.
The information technology sector forms over 30% of the fund’s portfolio and is the single largest sectoral holding. It is followed by the consumer discretionary sector, which forms ~23% of the fund’s assets. Healthcare is the only other sector whose composition reads in double digits, comprising 14.2% of the portfolio.
The consumer discretionary and healthcare sectors comprise more of the fund’s portfolio than they did a year ago. On the other hand, energy and financials form less of the fund than in previous periods.
Let’s see how the fund has fared in the one-year period ended October 2015 in the next article.
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