One of These Growth ETFs Has a 10-Year Record. The Other Is Beating It Anyway.
Charting tools may show you a decade of side-by-side returns for these two growth ETFs, but one of those histories is fabricated. Strip out the phantom data and a real performance gap emerges, along with a reason the winner may…
Vanguard Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:VUG) closed at $91.02 on September 21, while Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (NASDAQ:QQQM) finished at $305.27. Pull up a ten-year chart to decide between them and the younger Invesco fund appears to be trouncing the Vanguard veteran. However, QQQM’s price history only begins in October 2020. VUG’s runs back to 2004. Any charting tool showing a full decade of both funds is quietly filling in blanks that do not exist.
Across every window where both funds have real data, QQQM has led.
| QQQM | VUG | |
| Year to date | 21.25% | 12.27% |
| One year | 24.57% | 14.24% |
| Five years | 107.63% | 86.65% |
| Ten years | NA | 426.03% |
What QQQM Is Buying
QQQM tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, which holds 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on U.S. Nasdaq-affiliated exchanges, weighted by a modified market-cap rule. That sentence explains most of the outperformance. The index is a bet on a single listing venue and a specific set of business models, excluding banks, insurers, listed exchanges, and NYSE-sourced growth names. When mega-cap technology leads, the index runs; when it stalls, there is nowhere to hide. The prospectus logs the downside, citing a worst quarter of −22.4% in the second quarter of 2022.
What VUG Owns Underneath
VUG follows the CRSP U.S. Large Cap Growth Index, a broader screen that pulls growth stocks from every sector, financials included. In practice, the top of the fund still looks a lot like QQQM. As of June 5, 2026, VUG’s largest positions were Nvidia (13.3%), Apple (12.3%), Alphabet (9.9%), Microsoft (9.1%), and Amazon (4.6%). Add Broadcom, Meta, and Tesla, and eight names anchor most of the fund. Eli Lilly at 2.6% is the meaningful exposure QQQM lacks. That overlap is why the two funds march together most weeks and diverge only at the edges.
Cost
Vanguard’s fact sheet lists VUG’s expense ratio at 0.03%. Invesco lists QQQM at 0.15%, against fund assets of $105.7 billion. VUG is materially cheaper. That advantage compounds quietly against QQQM’s index edge every year you hold either fund.
Roth IRA Angle
Neither fund generates much income, so the usual Roth argument about sheltering taxable distributions barely applies here. The real Roth case for a growth ETF is different: it offers decades of compounding without tax on appreciation, and the freedom to swap between funds later without triggering a capital gain. That flexibility matters. If leadership rotates away from mega-cap Nasdaq names, a Roth holder can move from QQQM to VUG, or the reverse, and owe nothing. In a taxable account the same switch would cost real money.
Verdict
For a long-horizon Roth IRA holder, QQQM has led across all measurable comparisons available today. Its edge across every legitimate comparison window is measurable, its index is transparent, and the tax shelter neutralizes the flexibility cost of committing to a narrower fund. The caveat stands: a five-year lead built during a mega-cap technology boom is less evidence than VUG’s 426% decade. If the next cycle rewards healthcare, industrials, or non-Nasdaq growth, VUG’s wider net wins. QQQM suits investors who can tolerate the concentration; VUG suits those who cannot.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.
Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community.
Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.
Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions.
