Is Now a Better Time to Invest in the S&P 500 or Entire Stock Market?

1 hour ago 1

Stefon Walters, The Motley Fool

Mon, June 29, 2026 astatine 7:50 AM CDT 4 min read

In astir each scenario, the mundane capitalist is amended disconnected with a diversified portfolio and letting clip bash the work. Luckily, having a diversified portfolio doesn't person to mean investing successful dozens oregon hundreds of idiosyncratic stocks. It tin beryllium done with conscionable 1 exchange-traded money (ETF).

There are 2 ETFs that I see existent one-stop shops: the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) and the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEMKT: VTI). They person cardinal things successful common, but besides capable differences to warrant picking 1 oregon the other. So, if you're debating betwixt the two, which 1 is the go-to close now?

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Someone holding U.S. dollars successful their manus and smiling.

The lawsuit for choosing VOO

VOO consists of 505 of the largest American companies connected the market. Larger companies relationship for much of VOO, truthful though it has companies from each sector, it has a precocious attraction of tech stocks astatine the top. All 10 of its apical holdings are tech stocks, making up 39.2% of the ETF. Here is its afloat constitution by sector:

Information Technology (Tech): 38.6%
Financials: 11.3%
Communication Services: 10.4%
Consumer Discretionary: 9.7%
Healthcare: 8.3%
Industrials: 8.3%
Consumer Staples: 4.6%
Energy: 3.1%
Utilities: 2.1%
Materials: 1.8%
Real Estate: 1.8%

Right now, choosing VOO means banking connected the continued maturation of mega-cap tech companies (like the "Magnificent Seven" stocks) and the ongoing AI boom.

The lawsuit for choosing VTI

VTI holds 3,484 stocks from each industries and sizes. It contains each 505 stocks successful VOO, arsenic good arsenic small-cap and mid-cap stocks excluded from the S&P 500. VTI is besides weighted by size, truthful contempt holding astir 3,000 much stocks, its apical holdings are akin to VOO, though conscionable somewhat little concentrated. The apical 10 holdings are precisely the same, but they "only" relationship for 34.6% of VTI.

Data source: Vanguard. Percentages arsenic of May 31.

Investing successful VTI is doing distant with trying to fig retired which assemblage oregon institution sizes volition execute good and simply betting connected the maturation of the U.S. banal market. It volition undoubtedly spell arsenic the tech assemblage does -- it accounts for 42.3% of the ETF -- but that isn't conscionable large tech stocks; that includes tech stocks of each sizes.

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