Summary Vanguard Total Stock Market funds offer highly efficient, well-diversified exposure to the entire US stock market while charging rock-bottom fees—a recipe for success over the long run.The fund tracks the CRSP US Total Market Index, which represents nearly the entire investable US stock market. The index weights constituents by market cap after applying liquidity and investability screens to ensure the index is easier to track.Market-cap weighting forms the bedrock of this strategy. It harnesses the market’s collective wisdom on each holding’s relative value with the added benefit of low turnover and trading costs. It’s a sensible approach because the market tends to do a good job pricing the large-cap stocks that make up the bulk of this portfolio. Large-cap stocks attract widespread investor attention, so prices quickly reflect new information.Total-market funds mitigate transaction costs because they don’t target specific segments of the market and aren’t forced to buy or sell stocks when they enter or exit a market segment. Still, a small amount of turnover can occur at the lower rungs of the portfolio. The index implements buffer rules around its lower market-cap bound to limit unnecessary turnover. That’s a key feature since dealing in thinly traded small and micro-caps can increase transaction costs. The index further reduces trading costs by rebalancing over several days to limit market impact costs.The index includes small- and micro-cap stocks, which improve the end portfolio’s diversification and can provide a modest performance edge when small caps rally, as they did in the fourth quarter of 2020. They tend to be more volatile than large-cap stocks but have minimal impact at less than 10% of the portfolio.Market-cap weighting may expose the strategy to stock- or sector-level concentration risk when a few richly valued companies or sectors power most of the market gains. However, this strategy is less concentrated than its average peer in the US large-blend Morningstar Category. At year-end 2024, the fund held around 32% of its assets in the top 10 stocks compared with 50% for its average peer. No sector deviated more than 2 percentage points compared with peers. The funds’ heavy allocations to the technology sector could present some risk, but that is not a fault in the strategy’s design. The CRSP US Total Market Index simply reflects the market’s composition. In the long run, its broad diversification, low turnover, and low fee outweigh periodic concentration risks. by Brendan McCann , Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares (VTSAX) - Find objective, share price, performance, expense ratio, holding, and risk details., VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx Inv - Review the VTSMX stock price, growth, performance, The fund tracks the CRSP US Total Market Index. The index ranks all US stocks by their float .