I know squat about this kind of stuff but just inherited a bit so trying to learn whatever I can here.

Many here can help if you can provide more non-personal details.

And, you may want to consider consulting with a financial advisor. The inheritance may affect your tax return and if you are on Medicare - these payments, too.

Good luck

I so appreciate this. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll put together a summary of what I am dealing with. Right now I've got to deal with staying-alive chores. Feeding animals, people and such. Then an early bedtime as I didn't get much sleep last night thanks to a most noisy celebration. Of what, I'm not sure. Does seem like a lot of people invested in fireworks this year. Maybe we missed some great opportunity there?

Lots of knowledgeable people frequent this group.

Glad to have you!

Please see my reply above. Expect to talk with you all again soon.

A YTD performance in 2020 is not a good metric to gauge any investment, need to look at how its performed over time (3, 5 and 10 years). Vanguard mutual funds have low expense ratios across the board, so that is a plus for this fund. If all things between the two investment vehicles are equal, I'd make the switch just to lower the expense ratio, as Buffett and others advise keeping expense ratios as low as possible.

Another option is to sell your current investment and wait for things to cool down. Cash is, and always, will be king.

Still glad I did make that move. I managed my husband's accounts up till last year. Now they're mine, but I dint want to be in the game of a mixture of options. One account I had 8 investment options. Enuff already. We made $$, we borrowed on accounts, put substantial d.p. on our current residence, and he put a decent down payment on my new ride in 2018. So they worked for us. But that's our situation. 😊

So you won’t get really decent returns data for another few years.

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vftax/performance

I would think the difference between the quotes you are seeing probably has to do with exactly which day they did the calculation, because as you know, the market has been whipsawing quite a bit lately. It is also possible that one is reporting “Total Returns” and the other merely share price change.

Without spending a bunch more time looking into it, that’s my best guess.

For your specific issue:

VFTAX YTD as of 7/2 close: -0.08% is correct (Vanguard and Pornstar, err, Morningstar give that -- links below).

Yahoo Finance has -4.13% (this turns out to be as of end of May close, 5/29/20)

The reliable and wonderful Yahoo Historic Page tells me what I need to know to figure out this sh**:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VFTAX/history?p=VFTAX

First to find total returns, look at "Adjusted Close", not "Close". Adjusted Close includes reinvested distributions (so comparing two adjusted closes gives the total return). Whereas Close is just the share prices.

Adjusted Closes:
12/31/19: 30.17
05/29/20: 28.92   YTD as of 5/29/20 close: 28.92/30.17 - 1 => -4.14%
06/30/20: 29.79   YTD as of 6/30/20 close: 29.79/30.17 - 1 => -1.26%
07/02/20: 30.14   YTD as of 7/02/20 close: 30.14/30.17 - 1 => -0.099% (call it -0.08% )

So wassup Yahoo Finance with the YTD of -4.14%? Per my recollection, that number is as of the end of last month (usually). But in this case, they haven't apparently updated their internals to what end of last month is from 5/29/20 to 6/30/20.

As for YTD thru 7/2/20 close, 30.17 -> 30.14, why I get -0.099% = -0.10%, while they (Vanguard and Pornstar) get -0.08%, is because adjusted closes -- a complicated calculation when there are distributions -- is reported by Yahoo to 2 places, but internally the adjusted close is calculated to whatever precision they do calculations at, and that precise number is used in their return calculations.

And no, on the Yahoo Finance page, I don't see any footnote anywhere that the "YTD" is as of end of last month (let alone what they think "last month" ) is. Grrrrrr.

It irritates me to death that they've had like 20+ years to work out the bugs ... oh, never mind.

Morningstar is my usual "go to" place for fund information. Plus Vanguard for Vanguard funds.

All's I use Yahoo for is the historic quotes -- it's the only way I know of that lets me figure the total return between any 2 dates of my choosing. For example November 8, 2016 to present. For another example, January 20, 2017 to present. (Election day and Inauguration Day respectively).

=========================================================

Vanguard: even though the URL says "month-end-returns", the column header says "As of 7/2/20 YTD"
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/list#/mutual-funds/asset-class/month-end-returns

Yahoo Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VFTAX/performance?p=VFTAX

Yahoo Finance Historic Quotes: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VFTAX/history?p=VFTAX

Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vftax/quote

Using ADJUSTED CLOSES from Yahoo's historic quotes page
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VIGAX/history?p=VIGAX

12/31/19: 93.41
05/29/20: 99.24   YTD=6.24%
06/30/20: 103.97   YTD=11.30%
07/02/20: 105.71   YTD=13.17%

Morningstar also gets 13.18%, as does Vanguard.

Same reason as with VFTAX why I'm a little off - the adjusted closes I'm using are to 2 places to the right of the decimal, but internally, they are calculated to higher precisions and the higher precision numbers are used in total return calculations.

Oh dammit. The Yahoo Finance quotes summary page gives the YTD return as 6.24%. But if you scroll down and look to the right, under "Performance and Risk", it gives it as 10.28%. And the Yahoo Finance performance tab gives it as 10.28%. I have no idea what the 10.28% might come from. (I tried the Close number in place of Adjusted Close and don't get any matches to 10.28%)

I hate it I hate it I hate it.

The one that I want to drop is Dividends Growth Fund - VDIGX. Many years ago, before the Great Recession, I think, I was reading the WSJ on a plane, and it recommended this one. I kept it even when a Vanguard planner did not include it in their suggestions. We got a plan when we consolidated several iRAs. Over the years it performed nicely.

But this year it does not seem to perform well and with a 0.27% expense I think it is time to move.

Among the alternatives that I looked is Dividends Appreciation Index VDADX which appears similar but with expense of 0.08%. One reason may be 225 stocks vs. 40 which may account for it being more expensive.

Also the Growth Fund include cap gain distributions while the Div appreciation does not..

Will go to Morningstar. Thanks for your input

This looks to be an attractive fund to my eye. Good risk stats--beta (3-yr) 1.02, alpha 1.59. R-squared 99.45 (meaning it tracks the index very closely, but trails it by a very slight amount).

Average risk, fairly high return for the risk. I'd consider buying it.

Difference between Vanguard/Yahoo? Possibly a distribution missing? IDK--I'm a bit skeptical of Yahoo's numbers; they're not a source I would rely on professionally. Morningstar is closer to Vanguard's numbers, but the difference is in the dates...