He Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (NYSEMKT:VDC) and Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Staples ETF (NYSEMKT:RSPS) both focus on consumer staples, but VDC is much larger, has a lower expense ratio, and weights its holdings by market cap, while RSPS uses an equal-weighting approach and charges more.
Both VDC and RSPS give investors exposure to the consumer staples sector, but approach it differently. VDC tracks a broad cap-weighted index that includes more than 100 stocks, while RSPS equally weights just 37 consumer staples names from the S&P 500. This comparison highlights their differences in cost, recent returns, risk and portfolio construction.
|
Metric |
VCC |
RSPS |
|---|---|---|
|
Editor |
Vanguard |
Invesco |
|
Expense ratio |
0.09% |
0.40% |
|
1 year return (starting February 4, 2026) |
11.5% |
14.5% |
|
Dividend yield |
2.10% |
2.63% |
|
Beta |
0.64 |
0.61 |
|
AUM |
9.05 billion dollars |
$249.67 million |
Beta measures price volatility relative to the S&P 500; Beta is calculated from five years’ monthly returns. The 1-year return represents the total return over the past 12 months.
RSPS is more expensive to maintain than VDC, charging 0.40% annually versus 0.09%, but has generated a slightly higher dividend yield, paying 2.6% versus VDC’s 2.1%.
|
Metric |
VCC |
RSPS |
|---|---|---|
|
Maximum reduction (5 years) |
-16.55% |
-18.60% |
|
$1,000 growth in 5 years |
$1,375 |
$1,073 |
RSPS tracks an equal-weighted index of S&P 500 consumer staples names, giving smaller companies a larger role than in traditional cap-weighted funds. With 37 holdings, his most recent holdings included Bunge Global S.A. (NYSE: BG), Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL)and Church and Dwight Co Inc. (NYSE:CHD)each of which represents just over 3% of assets. The fund has been operating for over 19 years and only owns defensive consumer stocks, rebalancing quarterly.
VDC, by contrast, includes more than 100 companies, weighting them by market capitalization and leading to a strong tilt toward giants like Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT), Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ:COST)and Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG). VDC’s sector makeup is almost exclusively defensive consumer, with small allocations to cyclical and industrial consumer, making it more diversified in terms of number of holdings and offering broader industry coverage within commodities.
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Although the Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC) and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Staples ETF (RSPS) offer exposure to the consumer staples sector, their focus is quite different. Those differences may be the reasons for choosing one over the other.