Five Total Market ETFs Your Broker Forgot to Tell You About

For the investor looking to skirt volatility and for the truly indecisive among us, a total market ETF might just be the way. Most total market ETFs feature two virtues longer-term investors: Exposure to myriad sectors through holdings that often number in the hundreds and low expense ratios. Total market ETFs have another advantage: They're often less volatile than their sector or specialty ETF peers. So what's not to like? Well, total market ETFs aren't great short-term trading vehicles, but if that's the worst thing that can be said of an ETF, that's not so bad. So let's a have a look at five total market ETFs your broker may have neglected to tell you about. Vanguard Total International Stock ETF VXUS: As we've noted before, for a new ETF, VXUS is off to a stunning start having attracted nearly $57 billion in assets under management after debuting in January. With an expense ratio of just 0.2%, VXUS is home to over 6,600 stocks including BHP Billiton BHP, BP BP and Rio Tinto RIO. This is an ideal ETF for the investor looking to get substantial emerging and developed markets exposure without a heavy bias to North America. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF VTI: Consider the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF the U.S.-focused cousin of VXUS. VTI features a meager expense ratio of just 0.07% and has $157.3 billion in assets under management. Nine of the ETF's top-10 holdings are Dow stocks with Apple AAPL being the exception. Overall, more than 3,200 stocks call VTI home. WisdomTree Total Earnings Fund EXT: Like VTI, EXT is entirely devoted to the U.S. and Apple is also EXT's lone top-10 holding that isn't a Dow stock. Six sectors (information technology, financials, consumer staples, healthcare, consumer discretionary and energy) get double-digit weights and industrials are just below 10% of the fund's sector allocation. EXT has an expense ratio of 0.28%. SPDR Dow Jones Total Market ETF TMW: The SPDR Dow Jones Total Market ETF kind of flies under the radar when it comes to total market funds, but this fund is not to be taken lightly with a very nice expense ratio of just 0.2%. Home to about 940 stocks, TMW's top-10 holdings aren't much different than you'll get with EXT or VTI. Six sectors (IT, financials, consumer discretionary, healthcare, energy and industrials) receive double-digit allocations. iShares Dow Jones Index Fund IYY: Everything being equal, IYY would make for an excellent rival to VTI. But everything isn't equal. IYY is home to “just” 1,356 stocks and an expense ratio of 0.2%. With nearly $509 million in AUM, IYY isn't going anywhere, but retail investors would do well to be involved with VTI over IYY.