Dating back to last year, investors have been favoring exchange traded funds dedicated to the value factor over those ETFs offering exposure to the growth factor. That theme is continuing in 2017 and it is prompting some departures from a well-known growth ETF.
The Vanguard Growth ETF (NYSEArca: VUG) has been bleeding assets as investors flock to value funds. Value stocks typically trade at cheaper prices relative to fundamental measures of value, such as earnings and the book value of assets. In contrast, growth stocks tend to run at higher valuations since investors expect the rapid growth in those company measures.
VUG tracks the CRSP US Large Cap Growth Index. The ETF holds 323 stocks, including popular growth fare such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google parent Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB).
“On Tuesday, withdrawals from Vanguard’s growth exchange traded fund, ticker VUG, reached $900 million, the second most in its 12 year history. With $23 billion in assets, it’s the second-biggest such product in the world,” reports Luke Kawa for Bloomberg.