Meet the Vanguard Index Fund Beating the S&P 500 in 2026

The article highlights that, amid a market pullback, certain sectors—especially utilities—are outperforming the S&P 500. While the Vanguard Energy ETF (VDE) has soared (up over 40% since end-2025) largely on Middle East conflict-driven oil strength, the Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU) is the notable index-based outperformer versus the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), rising more than 7% while the S&P 500 is down about 7% year-to-date. The piece argues utilities’ defensive income (VPU’s trailing yield ~2.5%) and potential growth from rising electricity demand—S&P Global forecasts U.S. AI data-center power use jumping from 61.8 GW to 134.4 GW by 2030—support continued interest. The author notes VPU’s low expense ratio (0.09%) but cautions outperformance may not persist, framing the view as a bullish case for defensive/value rotation rather than a guaranteed trend.