Low cost
Our ETFs have low fees and you can trade for free using our bulk dealing service.
Diversified
Our ETFs often hold hundreds or even thousands of shares or bonds.
Simple
You can access an entire market index with one fund.
Trade live
Our quote and deal service lets you buy and sell ETFs in real time.
What is an ETF?
ETF stands for Exchange Traded Fund and they offer you a way to invest in a wide range of bonds or shares in one package. They'll typically track a specific market, like the FTSE 100.
In that respect they're very similar to index funds which also track a market's performance. So what’s the difference? It comes down to two things: the way they're traded (bought and sold) and fees.
How are ETFs traded?
Unlike other funds, ETFs are traded on the stock market. That means you can buy or sell them at any time during the day.
Other funds are only traded once a day. So while you can request to buy or sell them at any time it won’t actually happen there and then. It’ll go through at the next 'trade point' – usually the end of the day.
When you buy and sell an ETF you'll notice that it has two prices - an ask price (the price you can buy an ETF for) and a bid price (the price you can sell the ETF for). The difference between the bid and the ask price is called the 'spread'.
What are the fees and charges for ETFs?
Because ETFs are generally cheaper to run than regular funds, they often come with a low ongoing fee (we call this the ongoing charges figure, or OCF for short).
But because they’re traded on the stock market you may need to pay a stock broker fee when you buy or sell an ETF.
At Vanguard, if you want to trade an ETF in real time it costs £7.50 to use our quote and deal service. This is to cover our stock broker costs.
Alternatively, you can buy or sell our ETFs for free using our bulk dealing service. We combine your activity with that of other investors and place bulk deals twice a day.
Important things you need to know before you invest
Some of our ETFs are actively managed. Active investing involves building a portfolio that is deliberately different from the overall market. There is no guarantee that the shares and bonds chosen will perform better than the market. In fact, they might perform worse, so you could receive a lower return than that of the market
Our ETFs invest in a variety of markets which carry specific risks. Please see the Key Investor Information Document for full details
The value of investments can fall and rise so you might not get back what you invested