This chart highlights Vanguard’s top holdings 2025 S3, with tech giants dominating the portfolio.
Vanguard is leaning hard into AI + digital platforms, while hedging with financials & healthcare. Growth anchored by defense.
Seems a little silly to call this “vanguard’s” when they really belong to vanguard customers. And many/most of those customers are using market-cap-weighted index funds, so of course the companies with high market cap will be a large part of the holdings.
You’re right that technically these assets belong to Vanguard’s fund shareholders, not Vanguard itself. The phrasing “Vanguard’s holdings” is really shorthand for “the aggregate positions across Vanguard-managed funds.” Since the majority of Vanguard’s AUM is in market-cap-weighted index funds, the top holdings naturally mirror the largest companies in the market.
The reason analysts and media use “Vanguard’s holdings” is because it’s a convenient way to describe how Vanguard allocates capital on behalf of its investors. It doesn’t imply Vanguard owns the companies outright—it reflects the scale of exposure their customers have through Vanguard-managed vehicles.
That’s not accurate either. About 3% of vanguard’s holdings are controlled by vanguard advisory services
The rest is allocated by the investors themselves, or other non-vanguard advisors buying vanguard funds for their clients.
And they aren’t buying “vanguard holdings” in any sense that means that vanguard is allocating on their behalf. They are buying specific funds of their own choice. At the fund level, maybe your explanation makes sense in a way. At the company level, it doesnt.
You’re right! Vanguard isn’t sitting in a room hand‑picking Apple or NVIDIA for most of its AUM. The vast majority of those positions come from investors choosing specific index or mutual funds, and those funds are structured to track benchmarks rather than reflect discretionary allocation.
When people say “Vanguard’s holdings,” it’s shorthand for the aggregate positions across all Vanguard‑managed funds. At the fund level, that shorthand makes sense because Vanguard is the legal manager of the vehicles. At the company level, you’re right—it can be misleading if taken to mean Vanguard is actively allocating capital into those stocks. It’s really about how market‑cap concentration flows through passive vehicles, not Vanguard making stock‑picking calls.
Does Vanguard invest in AI?
It’s almost like they are following the index they track.