A global fund vs the S&P 500, side by side
This is the first real fork most people reach. A global tracker spreads your money across roughly 3,600 companies in developed and emerging markets alike. An S&P 500 tracker holds 500 large US companies and nothing else. What surprises people is how similar the two can look from the inside: the United States is by far the largest slice of the global index, so the names at the top of both funds are frequently the same American companies.
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (Dist)VWRL.L£137.25+24% 1Y
Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF (Dist)VUSA.L£106.44+22% 1YVWRL
The same ~3,600-company whole-world index as VWRP, but dividends are paid out to you as cash rather than reinvested inside the fund.
VUSA
The same 500 largest US companies as VUAG, but paying the dividends out to you as cash each quarter.
The numbers, side by side
| Measure | VWRL | VUSA |
|---|---|---|
| What it tracks | FTSE All-World | S&P 500 |
| OCF: Ongoing Charge Figure: the fund's yearly running cost, taken automatically. 0.22% is about £2.20 a year for every £1,000 you hold. | 0.22% | 0.07% |
| Acc / Dist: Accumulating (Acc) reinvests dividends inside the fund automatically; Distributing (Dist) pays them to you as cash. Same index either way. | Dist | Dist |
| Holdings: Roughly how many different investments the fund spreads your money across. More holdings usually means more diversification. | ~3,600 | 500 |
| Domicile | Ireland | Ireland |
| Replication | Physical (holds the underlying shares) | Physical (holds the underlying shares) |
| Yield: The income the fund has paid out over the past year as a percentage of its price. Accumulating funds reinvest this for you instead of paying cash. | — | — |
| Price | £137.25 | £106.44 |
| 1Y: How much the share price has moved over the past year. | +24% | +22% |
How they differ
These are genuinely different investments: VWRL tracks FTSE All-World while VUSA tracks S&P 500 - the real question is region and mix, not the wrapper. Among their ten largest holdings they share 9: NVIDIA Corp, Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and 5 more - so holding both would add little diversification; you would largely own the same names twice. Based on the biggest holdings we can see, not the whole fund. The fees differ: VWRL charges 0.22% a year and VUSA charges 0.07%. On £10,000 growing at an illustrative 6.5% a year that gap compounds to roughly £967 over 20 years - purely from cost, and an illustration rather than a forecast.
Descriptive only - how the two compare on today's data, never a verdict on either.
VWRL, in one line
The exact same whole-world fund as VWRP, same ~3,600 companies, except it pays the dividends into your account as cash instead of reinvesting them.
Read the full VWRL explainer →VUSA, in one line
The same 500 biggest US companies as VUAG, except this version pays the dividends out to you as cash.
Read the full VUSA explainer →Common questions
Does a global fund already include the S&P 500 companies?
Yes. A FTSE All-World tracker holds the big US companies as part of its roughly 3,600 holdings, alongside Europe, Japan, the UK and emerging markets. Holding both funds means holding those same US companies twice, at a combined weight higher than either fund gives them on its own.
Why does the global fund charge more?
Tracking thousands of companies across dozens of markets costs a fund more to run than tracking 500 in a single one. The ongoing charges are set out on this page, along with what that gap compounds to over twenty years on an illustrative return.