VOO, which is the Vanguard index fund that tracks the S&P 500 index, is currently the fourth largest ETF in the market, with over a quarter trillion dollars in Net Assets. It is often used as the standard bearer for comparing investments. If you actively trade or manage your portfolio, as opposed to buying index funds for the long term, VOO is what you should hold your returns up against. If you managed to beat VOO, congrats, you beat the index. But if you didn’t, your money would have just been better off in the boring old index fund that is VOO.
VOO tracks US-based companies, but what if an investor wants access to other countries? What countries and ETFs should they look at? For this post, we will compare VOO with indexes from the other major industrialized economies in the world, which are members of the G7.
The G7 is a political organization which makes up some of the world’s largest economies. Its members include the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The European Union, while not a country, is also a member of the organization.
iShares has ETFs which track indexes in each of these markets, so those are the ones we will be comparing to VOO. Here are the ETFs, sorted by Net Assets:
| Symbol | Country | Net Assets | Yield | Expense Ratio |
| VOO | United States | $256.18 billion | 1.46% | 0.03% |
| EWJ | Japan | $9.58 billion | 2.46% | 0.50% |
| EZU | Eurozone | $5.49 billion | 3.01% | 0.50% |
| EWC | Canada | $4.52 billion | 1.92% | 0.50% |
| EWU | United Kingdom | $3.57 billion | 4.49% | 0.50% |
| EWG | Germany | $1.67 billion | 3.41% | 0.50% |
| EWQ | France | $739.83 million | 4.48% | 0.50% |
| EWI | Italy | $332.45 million | 3.14% | 0.50% |
While these ETFs don’t have the Net Assets or trading volume in the same ballpark as VOO, they are still useful for comparing how the US stock market has done versus other markets. And these ETFs contain many household names. Here are the top two holdings of each ETF:
- EWJ (Japan): Toyota Motor Corp (7203) and Sony Group (6758)
- EWU (Eurozone): ASML Holding (ASML) and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (MC)
- EWC (Canada): Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) and The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD.TO)
- EWU (United Kingdom): Shell (SHEL) and AstraZeneca (AZN)
- EWG (Germany): SAP SE (SAP) and Siemens AG (SIE)
- EWQ (France): LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (MC) and TotalEnergies (TTE)
- EWI (Italy): Enel SpA (ENEL) and Eni SpA (ENI)
So how does VOO compare? Here are the results, sorted by 10 Year cumulative returns:
| Symbol | Country | 1 Year Return | 3 Year Return | 5 Year Return | 10 Year Return |
| VOO | United States | 0.08% | 48.49% | 88.87% | 256.60% |
| EWQ | France | -7.41% | 15.90% | 32.27% | 104.80% |
| EZU | Eurozone | -15.41% | 7.68% | 15.41% | 74.24% |
| EWJ | Japan | -14.28% | 8.12% | 18.04% | 72.02% |
| EWC | Canada | 6.04% | 39.29% | 57.61% | 61.27% |
| EWI | Italy | -10.91% | 6.54% | 19.93% | 51.05% |
| EWG | Germany | -22.93% | -1.97% | -1.72% | 44.50% |
| EWU | United Kingdom | 3.75% | 8.35% | 18.97% | 37.17% |
In conclusion, while EWU (United Kingdom) and EWC (Canada) have beat VOO during the last year, there is no competition when looking at 3, 5 and 10 year returns. VOO has outperformed all 7 other ETFs. For a long term investor, betting on the US stock market during the last decade has been a smart move.