If a Bear Market Is Coming in 2026, Here's 1 ETF That History Says Has Never Let Investors Down

3 weeks ago 17

Ben Gran, The Motley Fool

Tue, August 4, 2026 astatine 9:50 AM CDT 4 min read

The U.S. banal marketplace has been connected a fantastic tally for the past fewer years, but galore investors are feeling nervous. Whether it's speech astir precocious valuations of tech stocks, concerns astir the sustainability of the artificial quality (AI) boom, oregon rising involvement rates, there's ever a accidental that thing could hap time that drives stocks into a sell-off.

What if a carnivore marketplace is coming successful 2026? Some investors mightiness consciousness tempted to merchantability stocks and determination to cash. Others mightiness privation to halt investing successful stocks, support currency connected the sidelines, and hold until banal prices determination lower. Here's the occupation with timing the market: The marketplace tin determination faster than you. Missing retired connected the champion days of banal marketplace show tin origin large harm to your portfolio successful the agelong run.

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If you're genuinely a semipermanent capitalist and the wealth you're putting into stocks tin beryllium near invested for 10 years oregon more, you shouldn't interest astir a carnivore marketplace successful 2026. In the agelong run, owning a diversified portfolio of stocks is often the champion mode for radical to physique wealth, due to the fact that stocks fto you summation from the aboriginal net of immoderate of the world's astir profitable companies.

One of the champion banal ETFs for semipermanent investors is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO). Let's look astatine wherefore this Vanguard exchange-traded money (ETF) could beryllium a bully bargain for your portfolio -- nary substance what happens with banal prices adjacent year.

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Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO): 506 stocks, 15.04% annualized returns for 15 years

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is 1 of the world's astir fashionable ETFs, with much than $1 trillion of capitalist assets nether management. It's a low-cost scale money that lets you bargain the full S&P 500 scale with 1 trade, 1 ticker, and 1 rock-bottom disbursal ratio (0.03%). For the past 10 years, this money has delivered mean yearly returns (by nett plus value) of 15.04%. In the past year, it's up adjacent more: 19.53%.

What bash you get erstwhile you bargain VOO? You get 506 banal holdings, representing the 500 largest publically traded companies successful America. It's a passive scale fund, truthful it doesn't prime stocks. Instead, the money perpetually rebalances and adjusts its holdings based connected which companies' shares are doing amended oregon worse implicit time.