According to Morningstar’s 2013 report for the first 11 months of this year, Vanguard had 98% of all inflows into U.S. equity funds at $41.1 billion. The rest of the field had $1.1 billion. Though not gross sales, the net flow numbers do show both loyalty from current investors and new sales. With just under $300 billion, Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Fund is now the largest, passing PIMCO’s Total Return Fund in November.
Though low-cost funds generally shine in a low-return environment, Vanguard and fellow indexer DFA hold the top spots in 2013 even though the S&P is enjoying a five-year, 16% annualized return. Even Vanguard’s active funds are doing well, with $5 billion in net inflows for a total of $650 billion AUM. They were beaten only by JP Morgan and MFS this year.
Since 2007, Vanguard’s market share has increased 35%, from 13% to 17.6% of mutual funds and ETFs. Perhaps the firm’s popularity precipitated Fidelity’s recent move to cut fees for their index TDFs as Vanguard continues to gain on the TDF market leader.
