DIA and VOO Track Almost the Same Market Yet VOO Returned 318.99% While DIA Made 176.86% Over Ten Years Quick Read – SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) uses price-weighting to deliver a 3.24% year-to-date return through May 8, 2026, while Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) uses…
rket-cap weighting to achieve 8.47% year-to-date and 87.62% over five years, with VOO’s 0.03% expense ratio versus DIA’s 0.16%. – VOO’s automatic exposure to mega-cap technology and AI capex leadership has driven outperformance over every meaningful horizon, while DIA’s price-weighted bet on curated blue chips in industrials and financials only pays off during value rotations away from tech. – The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF wasn’t one of them. Get them here FREE
The choice between the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:DIA) and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:VOO) looks like a debate about diversification (30 stocks versus 500), but the real question is which weighting scheme deserves your money. DIA is price-weighted, so a $500 share counts more than a $100 share regardless of company size. VOO is market-cap weighted, so it tilts toward whatever the market values most.
That mechanical difference produced a 8.47% year-to-date return for VOO against just 3.24% for DIA through May 8, 2026. What Each Fund Is Actually Betting On DIA is a committee-curated bet on old-economy quality. The index editors at S&P Dow Jones hand-pick 30 blue chips skewed toward industrials, financials, and healthcare, then weight them by share price.