The $1 trillion ETF that outperforms the Brazilian market by more than 50 times.

The first publicly traded investment fund to surpass $1 trillion in assets isn't managed by any big name on Wall Street. It also doesn't have a proprietary investment thesis, doesn't make market calls , and doesn't charge performance fees.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF , found under the ticker VOO on the NYSE , is a classic among passive funds: it buys the 500 largest American companies, in the exact proportion of the index, every day.

This strategy did not prevent VOO from quadrupling in size since 2022 and surpassing its rival SPY, from State Street - until then the largest ETF in the world - in February 2025.

“With investors chasing the AI boom, ETFs have become an essential vehicle for exposure to the US stock market,” Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at TMX VettaFi, told the Financial Times .

The milestone of $1 trillion, reached on Wednesday, June 3rd, goes beyond the number and shows the growing battle between active and passive management.

Globally, ETFs accumulated $21.9 trillion in assets by the end of April 2025, more than three times the value they held at the beginning of 2020, according to the consultancy ETFGI – marking 83 consecutive months of positive net inflows.

Flight alone has attracted more than $60 billion year-to-date. This growth has been fueled by the rush to buy artificial intelligence stocks.

American big tech companies account for more than 35% of VOO's portfolio, and the fund has become the cheapest and most liquid way to ride the sector's boom.

With SpaceX , Anthropic , and OpenAI preparing to go public ( IPOs that could exceed $1 trillion in combined valuation), passive ETFs will be compulsory buyers of these stocks as soon as they enter the S&P 500, further amplifying their influence.

While most active fund managers fail to beat the index in the long term, VOO delivers a consistent return with a rate of 0.03% per year – equivalent to R$3 for every R$10,000 invested.

Brazil in this game

VOO, on its own, is more than 50 times larger than the entire Brazilian ETF industry. In the local market, ETF assets grew from R$ 54 billion to R$ 91 billion throughout 2025 – a jump of almost 70% – and the number of investors reached 919,000, according to data from B3.

Although almost one new ETF was launched every week last year, index funds represent less than 1% of the total assets of the Brazilian fund industry.

The Brazilian stock market, with less coverage from analysts and more concentration in commodities and banks than the S&P 500, theoretically offers more opportunities for a manager to exploit mispricing.

The problem is that, looking at long-term data, few have managed to translate this thesis into consistent returns above the benchmark.

And ETFs can offer an outlet for asset managers. So-called actively managed ETFs handle hundreds of billions of dollars with discretionary management – this is JP Morgan Asset Management's main bet for growth in the local and global markets.

“Active ETFs continue to be one of the main growth drivers in the industry. Over the past five years, they have grown at twice the speed of the total ETF industry. And this adoption is still only just beginning,” said Travis Spence, global head of ETFs at JP Morgan Asset Management , in an interview with NeoFeed .