SCHG vs VOO: The 2026 Data-Driven Comparison

SCHG and VOO are trading on opposite sides of the same trade. They’re both the owners of the largest firms in America. Both are inexpensive, liquid and will last for decades without problems. But a dollar in SCHG took a far worse beating in 2022, then rebounded in 2023 more than twice as fast. Google users who type “SCHG vs VOO” won’t be mistaken about what these funds are. They’re attempting to find out which is suitable for their cash.

SCHG vs VOO at a Glance

Many of the same big names are in the game with both, but VOO represents the whole game, meaning it is made up of about 500 stocks based on size, while SCHG is a growth-only part of the big game of U.S. stocks. That single structural difference, a growth-screened subset versus the whole market, drives nearly all the differences in the tables below.

Since SCHG and VOO are both exchange-traded funds rather than individual stocks, newer investors should first understand the basic mechanics of the wrapper itself — our guide on stocks vs ETFs covers how ETFs trade, get priced, and differ from buying shares directly.

Table 1. Fund Snapshot (official issuer figures, audited July 2, 2026)

What Each Fund Actually Owns

SCHG: a concentrated bet on U.S. growth

SCHG tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Growth Total Stock Market Index, the growth half of the 750 largest U.S. companies. The screening process is what brings the fund down to 197 holdings, and 50% of the portfolio’s weight into the top 10. SCHG launched in December 2009 and now holds $59.5 billion in net assets.

VOO: the market itself

VOO is a low-cost index fund that tracks the S&P 500. The fund is home to 505 stocks (503 equity holdings once non-equity line items are removed) and, coupled with the other share classes of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, manages $1.7 trillion, placing it among the biggest fund complexes on the market. That scale is reflected in trading costs: The average spread for VOO is approximately 0.01%.

For investors weighing whether to pick individual winners or simply own the whole market, VOO represents the passive side of that decision — see our full breakdown of stock picking vs index funds for a deeper look at which approach fits your goals.

Overlap: SCHG lives inside VOO

Of the 112 holdings, 53% of the combined portfolio weight is held in common. However, it is an asymmetric overlap, such that 67% of SCHG’s book is also in VOO, but only 22% of VOO’s book is in SCHG. Put simply, SCHG isn’t a universe of stocks all on its own, but rather a leveraged-conviction subset of VOO, focused on those stocks that meet the criteria for being “growth” stocks.

Table 2. Holdings Overlap (ETF Research Center, accessed July 2, 2026)

Sector tilts

SCHG’s growth screen focuses the fund on the Technology and Communication Services buckets, and excludes it from the Financials, Energy and Consumer Defensive buckets, which are the traditional “value” corners of the market that the growth index systematically avoids. This tilt is driven largely by mega-cap tech names carrying outsized weight in SCHG — our Microsoft expected return analysis looks at whether one of those top holdings still has room to run at current valuations.

Table 3. Sector Allocation, SCHG minus VOO (PortfoliosLab, Morningstar-style classification)

Fees: A One-Basis-Point Non-Event

SCHG’s expense ratio is 0.04% while VOO’s is 0.03%. That’s $4 per year versus $3 per year on a $10,000 position, a rounding-error difference, and Vanguard notes that comparable funds charge an average expense ratio of 0.72%, roughly twenty times more. The difference between these two funds isn’t the price each of them costs their customers.

It’s a choice that must be based on portfolio construction, not basis points, as both issuers have essentially cut their fees to zero. Because both funds are structured as ETFs rather than other exchange-traded products like commodity trusts or notes, their pricing and tax treatment follow the same rules — for a closer look at how these structures differ, see our comparison of ETF vs ETP.

Performance: 1-, 3-, and 5-Year Returns

All of the officially designated multi-year windows are in favour of SCHG. The 10-year annualised SCHG is 18.94% while VOO is 15.47%, a difference that has been providing growth investors with a very meaningful boost to their wealth over the past decade. With that said, the one-year is very sensitive to the exact as-of date: SCHG will be picking up its drawdown in the spring of 2025, which will continue to push the trailing 12 months closer to the peak.

At the QE of 3/31/26, SCHG’s official 1-year return was +16.86%, but at 5/31/26, the month-end return had become +27.91% due to only a different base month. Aligning both funds to the same June 30, 2026 date pulls SCHG’s 1-year return down to roughly +16.3%, below VOO’s +22.3% over the same window, which makes VOO the stronger performer on a matched 1-year basis. When looking at online sources, always verify the “as of” date prior to believing a 1-year comparison.

Table 4. Trailing Total Returns – Official Issuer Figures (NAV basis)

Figure 1. SCHG vs VOO official trailing total returns across YTD, 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year windows, plus since-inception CAGR.

Calendar-year returns: where the dispersion lives

The average sums up the ride. SCHG gained 50.1% in 2023 and lost 31.8% in 2022; VOO’s equivalent years were +26.3% and -18.2%. Over the ten years from 2017 to 2026, both funds turned in the same direction each year, and in most of those years the size of the move was larger for SCHG, both up and down, though VOO edged ahead in 2021, 2025 and 2026 to date.

Table 5. Calendar-Year Total Returns, 2017–2026 YTD

Figure 2. SCHG vs VOO calendar-year total returns, 2017 through 2026 year-to-date, with dividends reinvested.

The 2022 stress test: same correlation, double the pain.

It’s a year that really helps to distinguish these types of funds. The SCHG declined by 31.8%, and VOO declined by 18.2%, which is almost double, although the two funds correlate about 94% nearly all of the time. Beta: SCHG has a rating of 1.20 compared to the S&P 500, while VOO’s beta is close to 1.00 by definition.

The high correlation only implies that the funds move together on the same days, not how far they move. Past performance is no indicator of future performance, and growth’s decade of outperformance has been the result of a market regime that was characterised by low rates and mega-caps, which may well not continue.

Correlation: 0.94, and Why That Number Misleads

SCHG and VOO have exhibited a very sturdy correlation of about 0.93-0.94 in each window of measurement, from one year out to the entirety of the funds’ common history since 2010. However, independent recomputation from daily returns gives a slightly higher number: between 0.95 and 0.96, depending on the method used. But in either case, the result is the same: they match almost in lockstep direction-wise.

Amplitude is a correlation that doesn’t capture. SCHG’s volatility has been 22.3% annually over the past 5 years compared to 16.8% for VOO, and SCHG’s maximum drawdown over the last 5 years has been -34.6%, which is significantly greater than VOO’s -24.5%. The 0.94 correlation rating does not mean they can’t provide a vastly different ride, and here it is.

Table 6. Correlation, SCHG vs VOO (PortfoliosLab, monthly-updated)

Dividends: Yield Today vs. Growth of the Payout

Neither fund is designed for income; however, VOO pays significantly more income. VOO’s trailing-12-month yield sits around 1.07% ($7.35 per share), against SCHG’s roughly 0.36–0.39% ($0.1315 per share). The same disparity holds for the more consistent official 30-day SEC yield: 1.00% for VOO compared with 0.37% for SCHG.

Dividends per share grew 26.2% in 2023 and 14.1% in 2024 on a small base, which is an indication that SCHG is growing on its minuscule base. The payouts of VOO compounds are much larger but come in more slowly, in the 5-7% annual payout range. Quarterly payments are made from both funds. Everyone who does an apples-to-apples comparison of historical SCHG dividend data elsewhere should be aware that SCHG made a 4-for-1 share split in October 2024, and that’s why all per-share data here is split-adjusted; data on other sites that is not split-adjusted will seem four times larger.

If income is your priority rather than growth, VOO’s yield is still modest compared to dedicated income strategies — our roundup of the best dividend stocks to buy in 2026 covers names built specifically for higher, more consistent payouts.

Table 7. Annual Dividends Per Share (split-adjusted)

Risk and Valuation: What You Pay for the Growth Tilt

There has been a commensurate increase in risk with the extra return; this risk has balanced the return over time. The Sharpe ratio over the 10 years is about the same (0.85) for both funds, so that a higher raw return has been a reasonable tradeoff for the higher volatility, but it is no free outperformance. But over a shorter time frame, the narrative changes: VOO’s one-year Sharpe ratio of 2.15 is currently superior to SCHG’s 1.39, which is a sign of a quieter, less focused driving experience for VOO recently.

Table 8. Risk Metrics

SCHG’s stock has been valued at 34.65 times its earnings, while VOO has been 28.1 times earnings, which represents about a 23% earnings-multiple premium, according to the official valuation as of May 31, 2026. That premium is not just a result of “free-floating optimism”; SCHG’s underlying companies actually have a higher 33.5% return on equity compared to VOO’s 29.4% and a much higher 10.0x price-to-book compared to 5.5x.

It’s not if SCHG is “expensive in isolation”- it’s if a 23% premium on the current earnings power is reasonable for the higher meaning. When comparing returns on capital or earnings, if you stick to the numbers behind those returns, you’ll get the best idea of what you’re really paying the company at this moment.

Should You Hold Both?

The correlation between SCHG and VOO is 0.94, meaning that mixing the two doesn’t provide the same level of diversification as mixing, for example, U.S. stocks with bonds. A 50/50 split between SCHG and VOO is approximately 76% VOO exposure and approximately 24% incremental growth tilt on top.

Rather than a 50/50 split, the more economical strategy for expressing that view might be a size allocation for SCHG that is a satellite position in a portfolio, typically ranging from 10% to 30% of the portfolio. If you had both of these funds in large quantities and largely the same names, you would essentially be buying the same seven stocks twice.

If you’re still building the fundamentals of how index funds, diversification, and portfolio allocation work together, our beginner’s guide to stock investing walks through those basics before you decide how to size a position like SCHG or VOO.

Verdict: A Decision Framework, Not a Winner

The answer to the question “schg vs voo” is not one-size-fits-all; it depends on what it is that an investor is optimising for.

Table 9. Which Fund Fits Which Investor

Neither one is a wrong fund, nor is it a sure-winning investment in the future. It is important to note that SCHG has outperformed over the past 10 years due to a certain market environment, which was characterised by continuously low interest rates and growth in the market driven by megacaps. That’s not something that any expense ratio, correlation coefficient or trailing return table will tell you about that regime.

A comparison is not a recommendation for any particular individual in an account, including a Roth IRA or 401(k), and individual investors should consider their investment risk tolerance, current holdings and time horizon before making any investment decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Data as of July 1–2, 2026. For latest details visit the respective ETFs official websites.