Some Are Saying The World’s Largest ETF (VOO) Will Never Fall Below $600 A Share

As a barometer of US industrial and  corporate economic health, the S&P 500 Index has few equals. Over the past decade, less than 15% of professional large-cap fund managers have been able to surpass the performance of the S&P 500. 

This strong performance has spawned many different vehicles for investors to own the index, first as mutual funds and more recently as ETFs. The largest and most popular of these is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: VOO). With nearly $770b in assets under management, VOO is the largest and most broadly held ETF today. 

Even Warren Buffett himself endorses Vanguard’s low-cost S&P investment options, once writing that:  

“My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.) ”

How The World’s Largest ETF Measures Up

VOO is a linchpin investment for many portfolios. With nearly $790b in assets under management it is the world’s largest ETF, bar none. As a passively managed ETF, it tracks the S&P 500 Index with 504 individual positions (due to different share classes). It pays a dividend of just over 1%, and charges an astronomically low 0.03% expense ratio, meaning every $10,000 invested only costs $3 a year. 

Source: Vanguard

Top 5 Largest Holdings:

• Nvidia – 7.76%
• Microsoft – 6.88%
• Apple – 6.33%
• Amazon – 3.95%
• Meta Platforms (Facebook) – 2.93%

Source: Vanguard

Since VOO closely tracks the S&P 500 Index, it does not require the selective monitoring of a portfolio with several individual stocks. The S&P 500 is estimated to accurately represent 80% of US industrial health. The index rebalances every quarter, and VOO mirrors those changes. For example, AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) , Robinhood Markets (Nasdaq: HOOD) and Emcor (NYSE: EME)  were recently added to the S&P 500  in September, replacing Enphase Energy (Nasdaq: ENPH), MarketAxess Holdings (Nasdaq: MKTX), and Caesars Entertainment (Nasdaq: CZR), which were dropped. 

VOO’s Incredible Recent Returns

With the exception of a semi-bearish correction in late March to early April in the immediate reaction to President Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy announcement, The S&P 500 Index and VOO have continued a bullish run that started in 2023. Year to date, at the time of this writing, VOO is up 14.84% and 0.79% in just the last five (5) days. 

Since reaching a new historical high earlier in September of $615, a number of buoyant VOO shareholders have taken to Reddit and other social media proclaiming that $600 is the new VOO price support level. While numerous naysayers are pessimistic, claiming that the current level is a bubble, inflation will rise again, or threats of war will topple the market and bring it back down, there are legitimate economic and geopolitical factors that support the notion of $600 being the new, technical (a forward price split would still support the bullish premise) price support level.

Bearish Arguments Against VOO

As September marked the achievement of new, all-time highs for VOO, the negative sentiment from market watchers and some shareholders has started proliferating. Some of these criticisms and bearish arguments include:

• The S&P 500 is too heavily steered by the Magnificent 7 tech companies (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Meta Platforms (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla), and if they undergo a correction, VOO will drop accordingly below $600.
• The return of inflation will drop VOO’s market price by at least 10-15% if not more. 
• The current market is near all time highs, driven by over-enthusiastic investments in artificial intelligence. The S&P 500 currently trades for over 30x earnings, a level it has only rarely exceeded (1999, 2001, 2009, and 2020)
• The August jobs report showed 22,000 jobs added, less than the 76,000 projected, and an indicator of softening in the employment arena.
• The US is in danger of getting mired in international conflicts, such as in the Middle East, Ukraine, or more recently with Venezuela, which could cause market instability. 

Bullish Arguments Supporting VOO

Those who share the $600 “new floor” sentiment for VOO offer the following bullish arguments:

• Overall wage growth is outpacing inflation, with blue collar wages registering their largest gains in 60 years – evidence of underlying strength in manufacturing, agriculture, and other core industries dealing with tangible goods and services.
• After the temporary market correction in late March-early April in response to President Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy announcement, the US Treasury Department reported tariff revenues of over $183.6 billion in August, 2025. 
• Reuters reported that tariff revenues have lowered the US deficit in August by $345 billion. 
• Unemployment remains very tight, indicating a continued strong job market. 
• The recently announced HB-1 visa $100,000 fee will end employment wage abuses with foreign workers by wealthy corporations, and further go to support domestic skilled labor employment revitalization.

So Which Is It?

Clearly neither the bulls or bears have a crystal ball, but with VOO currently trading at $610 a share, the market would only need to fall by 1.6% to breach the $600 support level. This year alone, the S&P 500 and VOO have fallen by more than this on 13 separate occasions. 

Source: Capital IQ

Even long term bulls have to concede that VOO never breaching $600 a share again is extremely unlikely, even if shares continue to perpetually and unevenly march higher in the long run. 

Conclusion: The bears have this one right.