What If You Had Invested in VT 10 Years Ago?

VT: all at once or every month?

Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 2008 (210 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 153 (73%). Apart from its launch year, the starts that favored monthly buying for VT are spread across several shorter dips: 2011, 2015, 2018 and 2022. Each was a year when markets outside the U.S. had a rough patch. The best case for monthly investing was a start in June 2008, when it finished the year 41% ahead.

Worst drop

VT's worst fall in this history was -46.0%, a deep bear-market fall, from June 2008 to February 2009. Getting back to the old high took until December 2010: 22 months from the bottom and 2.5 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $540 at the low.

VT launched in June 2008, just ahead of the worst of the financial crisis. It lost almost half by early 2009 and did not get back to its starting point until late 2010. Owning the whole world was no protection from a crisis that hit the whole world.

Since 2010 U.S. stocks have beaten the rest of the world by a wide margin, so VT has trailed VOO by a lot. The case for VT is that nobody knows which country will lead the next fifteen years.

VT dividends

VT paid $2.41 per share over the last 12 months, in March, June, September and December. At $151.73 that is 1.59%, a moderate yield. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +10.9% a year, well ahead of inflation. The yearly total fell in 2020, 2022.

Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.

VT dividend history: last 12 payments

About VT

Fund details as of 2025. Check the issuer for the current expense ratio and holdings.

VT holds nearly every listed company in the world in a single fund, weighted by size. Close to two thirds of it is in the United States today; the rest is spread across Europe, Japan, the U.K., Canada, China, India and dozens of smaller markets, both developed and emerging.

It launched in June 2008, three months before Lehman Brothers failed, so its record starts at about the worst possible moment. That makes VT a useful page for seeing how long a global portfolio took to recover from a bad start, and how much monthly buying helped.

Why not just own the U.S.?

U.S. stocks beat the rest of the world for most of VT's history, so a U.S.-only fund came out ahead. It has not always been that way. In the 2000s international and emerging markets did better, and Japan's stock market took 34 years to regain its 1989 peak. VT is a bet that no single country is guaranteed to lead.

One fund, whole portfolio

VT is often suggested as the simplest possible stock portfolio: one fund that shifts between countries automatically as their markets grow and shrink. Its fee is a little higher than VTI's because foreign markets cost more to trade, but it saves owning and rebalancing two funds.

Questions about VT

Did VT beat the S&P 500?

No. Over the last 10 years it trailed by 2.6 percentage points a year: +12.0% a year for VT against +14.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. Its worst fall was about the same as SPY's.

Does VT hold the same U.S. stocks as VTI?

Yes. VT's U.S. part holds essentially the same companies as VTI, and its international part matches VXUS. Owning VT is close to owning roughly 60% VTI and 40% VXUS, kept in balance automatically as markets move.