Quick take: this piece compares Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) and State Street SPDR Portfolio Developed World ex-US ETF (SPDW), laying out fees, holdings, risk measures, and recent performance to help you decide which global equity fund fits your portfolio.
Picking between Vanguard VT and State Street SPDW comes down to a simple question: do you want a single, global fund that includes the U.S. or a non-U.S. developed-market sleeve you can pair with domestic holdings? VT is a one-stop world fund that leans heavily on U.S. stocks, while SPDW strips out the U.S. to give you developed-market exposure outside America. That structural difference drives everything that follows: costs, yield, sector tilts, and how each behaves in a mixed portfolio.
On the cost and size front, the two funds are both extremely cheap, but State Street nudges ahead on fees. SPDW charges a rock-bottom 0.03% expense ratio versus VT’s 0.06%, and that tiny gap compounds over time. As of July 1, 2026, SPDW traded around $49.76 a share with about $40.3 billion in assets under management, while VT sat near $156.12 a share with roughly $95.3 billion under management.
Income and volatility paint a clearer contrast. SPDW sports a higher trailing yield of 3.00% compared with VT’s 1.60%, reflecting heavier weighting in higher-yielding sectors and markets. Beta figures are similar but a touch lower for SPDW at 0.83 versus VT’s 0.92, and those differences show up in drawdowns and recovery patterns during market stress.
Looking at performance and risk over recent windows, neither fund is a dud. Over the trailing 12 months SPDW delivered about 27% while VT returned roughly 23.6% as of the same snapshot. Five-year max drawdowns stood at (30.20%) for SPDW and (26.40%) for VT, and if you’d invested $1,000 five years ago SPDW would have grown to about $1,572 versus VT’s $1,653, illustrating slightly different risk-reward tradeoffs across periods.
What’s inside VT explains a lot of its behavior: it holds roughly 10,024 positions across developed and emerging markets, with a sector tilt toward technology at 31.1%, financial services at 15.2%, and industrials at 11.4%. Its biggest names include Nvidia at about 4.2%, Apple at 3.8%, and Microsoft at 2.8%, and the fund launched in 2008. That tech-heavy, U.S.-weighted mix helps explain why VT has delivered strong multi-year returns when U.S. large caps outperformed.
SPDW, by contrast, concentrates on non-U.S. developed markets with around 2,416 holdings and a different sector profile: financial services 22.2%, industrials 18.4%, and technology 16.8%. Top country weightings include about 21% in Japan, 11.7% in the U.K., and roughly 11% in Canada, and its largest individual positions include Samsung Electronics at 3.1%, SK Hynix at 2.5%, and ASML at 1.8%. Launched in 2007, SPDW’s higher payout and lower fee make it appealing for income-focused or cost-sensitive investors.
Performance over longer horizons favors Vanguard in several frames, but SPDW has been stronger in the short term. VT has outperformed SPDW on 3-, 5-, and 10-year trailing returns—about 19.7%, 10.9%, and 12.8% respectively compared to SPDW’s roughly 19.2%, 9.8%, and 10.4%. Yet SPDW has outpaced VT year-to-date and over the past year, with roughly 14.4% YTD and 28.3% over 52 weeks versus VT’s 12% YTD and 24.3% over 12 months, so timing and regional leadership matter.
Which fund suits you depends on the gap you’re trying to fill. If you want a tidy, single-fund solution that captures global market cap and leans on U.S. tech leaders, VT is a clean choice. If you prefer to customize geographic exposure, capture higher distribution yield, and shave a few basis points off your fees, SPDW is a sensible complement to U.S.-only holdings and a practical tool for tilting away from domestic concentration.
Both offerings are low-cost, broadly diversified building blocks for a core equity allocation, but they serve different portfolio roles. Consider which structural approach—one-stop global exposure with U.S. heft or an ex-U.S. developed markets sleeve—matches your target asset mix, income needs, and appetite for overlapping U.S. names before pulling the trigger.
