Motley Fool writer slightly favors Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) over Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) for a long-term portfolio: VTI invests in over 3,500 U.S. stocks, including small- and mid-caps; VOO tracks 500 large companies. Both have 0.03% expense ratios.
The funds share about 88% of their assets because both are market-cap weighted and dominated by large companies. The article cites small-cap outperformance during nearly all of the 2000s and into the early 2010s; it also reports that the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) was about 2% ahead of VOO year to date in 2026.
The author notes that smaller companies tend to be more volatile and more sensitive to interest-rate changes, and their earnings growth can fluctuate. About 40% of current Russell 2000 components had negative trailing-12-month earnings. The article says small-cap exposure is better suited to long-term buy-and-hold investing and does not guarantee higher returns in every period.
