A fund that owns three of the market’s most recognizable technology giants yet carries no Nvidia exposure has quietly beaten both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite in 2026.
The Vanguard Russell 1000 Value ETF (VONV) has returned 24.8% this year, drawing attention from investors seeking growth-oriented holdings through a value-classified vehicle.
What makes the fund’s composition unusual is an index construction quirk that allows the same stock to appear in both the Russell 1000 Value and Russell 1000 Growth indexes simultaneously.
FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, conducts a semi-annual reconstitution that splits the Russell 1000’s market capitalization roughly in half across those two indexes.
Unlike Morningstar’s methodology, which maintains strict separation between its large-cap value and growth indexes, FTSE Russell permits dual membership, enabling Amazon (AMZN), Apple, and Microsoft (MSFT) to land in the value index.
Together, those three companies account for 17.4% of VONV’s total holdings as of September, making them the fund’s three largest positions by a considerable margin.
Amazon holds the top spot individually, not because of a deliberate stock-picking decision, but because the entire weight of its market capitalization flows into the value index rather than being divided between value and growth.
Apple and Microsoft, by contrast, have their market caps split across both indexes, which reduces their individual weighting in VONV despite their larger overall market capitalizations.
Nvidia, which is classified firmly as a growth stock, does not appear anywhere in the fund, making VONV a practical option for investors who already have significant semiconductor exposure elsewhere in their portfolios.
Technology as a whole represents only 22% of the fund’s total holdings, a considerably lighter concentration than what investors encounter in the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq Composite.
That lower tech weighting, combined with exposure to traditional blue-chip value sectors, gives the fund a more diversified risk profile than pure-growth alternatives while still capturing upside from the largest technology companies.
On cost, VONV charges an expense ratio of just 0.06%, translating to roughly $6 annually for every $10,000 invested, placing it among the least expensive equity funds available to retail investors.
Over the longer term, the fund has produced an annualized return of 12.1% across the past decade, suggesting its 2026 outperformance is not purely a product of short-term market conditions.
For investors navigating a market where growth and value classifications have grown increasingly blurred, VONV offers an unconventional path to owning leading technology names without concentrating heavily in the sector’s most volatile corners.
