Vanguard

Vanguard is an investment management company offering funds, brokerage accounts, financial advice and retirement services to individuals, institutions and financial professionals. It offered 487 funds worldwide as of June 2026 and reported more than 50 million investors at year-end 2025. Salim Ramji is its CEO.

Founder John C. Bogle began Vanguard’s operations in 1975. In 1976, he launched the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, originally called First Index Investment Trust, giving individual investors access to an index strategy previously available to institutions. The initial offering raised just over $11 million, well below Bogle’s hopes. Vanguard later expanded indexing beyond U.S. stocks, launching a bond index fund in 1986.

An index fund seeks to track a market benchmark by holding its securities, or a representative sample, in roughly their index weights. This rules-based approach aims to capture the benchmark’s return rather than beat it through individual security selection. Lower trading and management costs can leave more of the return with investors, although investments can still lose value.

Vanguard is owned by its U.S. funds, which are in turn owned by their shareholders. Its U.S. mutual funds and ETFs had an asset-weighted average expense ratio of 0.07% in 2025.

Beyond funds, Vanguard offers brokerage accounts that can hold mutual funds, ETFs, stocks and bonds, as well as retirement and education accounts. Its advice services range from automated portfolio management through Digital Advisor to planning with human advisors. Its Cash Plus Account combines a bank sweep for short-term cash with optional money market funds.