SCHG vs VOO 10-year return favors SCHG by a wide margin over the decade that began on October 21, 2016. SCHG gained 460.49% with distributions reinvested, while VOO gained 326.29% over the same stretch.
That gap equals 134.2 percentage points. A $100,000 position would have grown to $560,490 in SCHG and $426,290 in VOO, a difference that shows how much a decade of compounding can separate two large-cap ETFs with different styles.
SCHG and VOO from October 21, 2016
SCHG tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Growth Total Stock Market Index, while VOO tracks the S&P 500. SCHG also selects growth stocks from among the 750 largest U.S. companies by market value, which makes it the narrower fund in the comparison. Ryne Mauck edited the piece, and the setup is straightforward: over the full ten-year window, the growth tilt beat the broad market exposure.
The lead over the decade was built mostly in the first half of the period. That is the part of the record that explains why the long-run numbers diverged so sharply, even though both funds started from the same date and both figures use total returns with distributions reinvested.
VOO narrows the SCHG lead
The shorter windows look very different. From October 21, 2021, SCHG returned 86.44% and VOO returned 83.05%, cutting the margin to 3.39 percentage points. Over the past year, VOO returned 16.66% versus 11.70% for SCHG, and year-to-date VOO is up 14.48% compared with 10.60% for SCHG.
Even the most recent month stayed tight, with VOO up 1.68% and SCHG up 1.60%. Wednesday afternoon’s delayed quotes showed VOO at $711.73 and SCHG at $35.96, but the price levels themselves do not change the larger message: the decade still belongs to SCHG, while the recent tape has favored VOO.
Ryne Mauck and the next decade
That split is the practical takeaway for investors comparing SCHG and VOO. The ten-year record says a focused growth ETF can beat a broader index fund by a large amount over one cycle, but the most recent year and year-to-date figures show the edge can compress quickly when the market shifts. Whether SCHG’s next ten years look anything like the last ten is not answered by the current numbers.
