Consultants

Delivering the recordkeeping and investment solutions that best serve your clients.

A partnership you can count on

You can trust Vanguard to do what’s right
By partnering with Vanguard, you’ll be with an industry leader who puts investors first. That’s because we’re investor owned.1 For your clients, that means participant success is our number one goal. For you, that means we provide access to industry-leading resources, advisors, and proprietary data analysis—empowering you to help your clients make the best decision for their participants and their business. 
1 Vanguard is investor owned. This means investors own the funds that own Vanguard.
No. 1
fund family 10-year returns, as ranked by Barron’s.
Note: “Barron’s Best Fund Families" published February 18, 2022, based on data through 2021. Returns were calculated before any 12b-1fees, fund loads, or sales charges were deducted. Index funds were excluded. Results were asset-weighted and ranked against actively managed peers in the relevant Lipper category. For the 10-year period, Vanguard ranked 1st in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2017, and ranked #3 in 2018. For 2021, Vanguard is ranked #43 for 1-year performance and 5th for 5-year performance. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the bottom of the page for more information.

Tap into these powerful resources designed to help you succeed:

  • RFP and RFI support.
  • Guidance on fiduciary practices and plan governance.
  • Access to our research and top investment experts.
  • Up-to-date perspectives from our government relations team on regulatory issues.
  • Updates on critical market developments.
Connect with us to learn more about how Vanguard can help you achieve greater outcomes for your clients.
Let's connect

Vanguard ranked first place in the Barron's/Lipper Top Fund Families rankings for 10-year performance, as featured in Barron's February 18, 2022, issue. In 2021, Vanguard is ranked 43rd for 1-year performance and fifth for 5-year performance.

Each fund’s performance is measured against all of the other funds in its Refinitiv Lipper category, with a percentile ranking of 100 being the highest and one the lowest. This result is then weighted by asset size, relative to the fund family’s other assets in its general classification. If a family’s biggest funds do well, that boosts its overall ranking; poor performance in its biggest funds hurts a firm’s ranking.

To be included in the ranking, a firm must have at least three funds in the general equity category, one world equity, one mixed equity (such as a balanced or target-date fund), two taxable bond funds, and one national tax-exempt bond fund.

Single-sector and country equity funds are factored into the rankings as general equity. We exclude all passive index funds, including pure index, enhanced index, and index-based, but include actively managed ETFs and so-called smart-beta ETFs, which are passively managed but created from active strategies

Finally, the score is multiplied by the weighting of its general classification, as determined by the entire Lipper universe of funds. The category weightings for the 1-year results in 2021 were general equity, 37.1%; mixed asset, 20.6%; world equity, 16.8%; taxable bond, 20.9%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.5%.

The category weightings for the 5-year results were general equity, 37.3%; mixed asset, 21%; world equity, 16.5%; taxable bond, 20.8%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.4%. For the 10-year list, they were general equity, 38.6%; mixed asset, 19.2%; world equity, 16.9%; taxable bond, 20.5%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.8%.

The scoring: Say a fund in the general U.S. equity category has $500 million in assets, accounting for half of the firm’s assets in that category, and its performance lands it in the 75th percentile for the category. The first calculation would be 75 times 0.5, which comes to 37.5. That score is then multiplied by 37.1%, general equity’s overall weighting in Lipper’s universe. So it would be 37.5 times 0.371, which equals 13.9. Similar calculations are done for each fund in our study. Then the numbers are added for each category and overall. The shop with the highest total score wins. The same process is repeated to determine the five-and 10-year rankings.

Visit Barrons.com for more information about the Barron's/Lipper Top Fund Families rankings.

For more information about any fund, visit institutional.vanguard.com or call 800-523-1036 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.