Investing Port

This ETF offers targeted exposure to the U.S. consumer discretionary sector, making it a potentially useful tool for investors implementing a sector rotation strategy or seeking to tilt their portfolio towards high beta holdings. VCR could potentially have appeal to long-term buy-and-holders as well, since the discretionary sector generally receives smaller allocations in broad-based U.S. equity funds. Vanguard ETFs are generally among the most cost efficient choices in any category, but that isn't necessarily the case here; both FCL and XLY are slightly cheaper in terms of expense ratio. There are, however, no consumer discretionary ETFs that can match the depth of holdings delivered by VCR; the unique Vanguard structure allows this fund to hold close to 400 individual stocks and avoid excessive concentration in a small handful of mega cap stocks. There are a number of potential alternatives to VCR besides those ETFs mentioned above; the equal-weighted RCD is one option, while the alpha-seeking FXD and PEZ could be interesting options as well.