Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) is up approximately 12% year-to-date in 2026, outperforming growth ETFs (VUG) by about 2 percentage points (VUG is up about 10% during the same period). This marks the first time in a decade that dividend investing has outperformed pure growth investing. Analysis suggests that yields near multi-decade highs have compressed the valuations of long-term growth stocks, most significantly impacting VUG's heavily weighted portfolio of tech giants (such as NVIDIA at 13.3% and Apple at 12.3%).