The Vanguard Group

The Vanguard Group is an American investment management company known for its mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and investor-owned structure. Its funds are owned by their investors, who indirectly own Vanguard through the funds.

Vanguard mutual funds: Mutual funds managed by Vanguard that pool investors’ money to hold portfolios of securities. These funds are the vehicle through which Vanguard’s US investors collectively own the company.
John C. Bogle: An American investor who founded Vanguard and championed low-cost index investing. Bogle founded Vanguard and made investor costs central to its identity.
Fidelity Investments: An American financial services company offering investment funds, brokerage services, and retirement plans. Fidelity competes with Vanguard but is privately owned rather than owned by its funds.
Target-date fund: A fund that adjusts its asset allocation over time toward a stated target year. Vanguard offers these funds as diversified portfolios that shift with an investor’s expected retirement date.
Passive management: An investment approach that follows a market index or rules rather than selecting securities to outperform it. Vanguard’s growth helped popularize passive investing among individual investors.
Vanguard ETFs: Exchange-traded funds managed by Vanguard that trade on stock exchanges like shares. They extend Vanguard’s low-cost fund offerings into an exchange-traded format.
Wellington Management Company: An investment management firm founded in 1928 and historically associated with the Wellington Fund. Vanguard’s early history is tied to Wellington Management and its flagship fund.
BlackRock: A global investment management company and the world’s largest asset manager by assets under management. BlackRock is a major rival in index funds and ETFs, with a publicly traded corporate structure.
Vanguard Target Retirement Funds: Vanguard target-date funds that hold diversified portfolios and adjust allocations as their target dates approach. They demonstrate Vanguard’s packaged approach to long-term retirement investing.
S&P 500: A stock market index tracking 500 leading publicly traded companies in the United States. Vanguard’s first index fund helped bring this benchmark into ordinary investors’ portfolios.

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