I’m 35; what is the perfect growth ETF to pair with VOO for long-term wealth?

Key Points

• Retirement portfolio growth is the paramount obsession of many Gen-Z followers of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) philosophy.

• Those who have pensions or employer sponsored 401-K accounts with safe and guaranteed investments may decide to approach a separate growth account on a DIY basis with ETFs.

• A long-term growth portfolio can contain a few or several ETF holdings, depending on the investor’ subjective criteria.

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Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have become the main vehicle of choice for FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) ethos Gen-Z and Millennial adherents. The intrinsic diversification, low cost, and index based gains of ETFs have helped millions of individual investors build wealth to achieve their FIRE goals. Perhaps due to the continual praise from Warren Buffett and the late Charlie Munger, the S&P 500 Index has become the most watched benchmark for investors, so it’s no surprise that the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: VOO) is the largest and most widely held ETF in the industry.

A Gen-Z investor who already owns VOO posted on Reddit to solicit suggestions for a complementary long-term growth ETF. As he already has half of his investment portfolio in a government backed program with guaranteed returns (possibly employer sponsored), he wants to put the remaining 25% in a growth ETF that will likely outperform VOO. Luckily for him, there are plenty of choices abounding, depending on his personal investment details. With this in mind, the following are some ETFs with different approaches for the sake of diversity that he or those in a similar situation may wish to consider. All statistics are based on market price at the time of this writing.

Vanguard S&P Growth Index Fund ETF Shares

VOOG follows the S&P 500 Growth Index, which measures stock price reaction to increased sales and other momentum elements separate from market capitalization.

Although the S&P 500 has become heralded over the past two decades for its overall growth rate it is still inclusive of stocks that are huge by market cap size but are better known for dividends (i.e., Altria), or key industry (i.e., Boeing) than for unbridled growth. The S&P 500 Growth Index is a subsector of the S&P 500 Index. It cherry picks S&P 500 member stocks and singles them out for growth stock ranking inclusion based on the following criteria:

• Sales Growth

• Ratio of Earnings Change to Price

• Momentum

The Vanguard S&P Growth Index Fund ETF Shares NYSE: VOOG) tracks the S&P 500 Growth Index. The above measures and market enthusiasm response to accelerate price appreciation on good news, for example, will influence a stock’s ranking in the S&P 500 Growth Index more than individual overall market capitalization.

VOOG Top 5 Sector Weightings:

• Technology – 42.54%

• Communication Services – 14.76%

• Consumer Cyclical – 12.00%

• Financial Services – 11.35%

• Industrials –  7.24%

The top 5 largest VOOG holdings include:

• NVIDIA Corporation – 13.74%

• Microsoft Corporation – 6.85%

• Meta Platforms Inc. Class A (Facebook) – 5.71%

• Apple, Inc. – 5.03%

• Broadcom – 4.62%

Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF

At 2.75%, Taiwan Semiconductor is the largest position in the Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF portfolio.

The world is a big place, and although the US market is the largest, there are many companies and opportunities in other nations that often go under the radar in US news coverage. Even certain well-known companies in the US, like Nestle and Samsung, are actually foreign companies. The Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (NYSE: VEU) tracks the  FTSE All-World ex US Index.  It carries a broad range of stocks from emerging markets, in addition to Europe, PacRim, Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

An overview of VEU includes the following:

Regionally, the VEU portfolio is allocated thus:

• Emerging Markets: 26.80%.

• Europe: 40.40%

• Pacific Rim: 25.50% 6.80% for

• North America: 6.70

• Middle East at 0.60%.

As the top 10 holdings list below demonstrates, VEU holds stakes in a number of internationally renowned companies:

From a sector perspective, VEU is weighted in the following sectors:

• Financial Services – 24.35%

• Industrials – 15.32%

• Technology – 13.83%

• Consumer Cyclical – 9.92%

• Healthcare – 8.14%

Despite the ongoing trade friction between China and the US, VEU has some strategic advantages:

• VEU’s large position in Taiwan Semiconductor, which is 2.75% of its portfolio, can be a huge contributor.  Taiwan Semiconductor is essentially a de facto AI stock play, due to its exclusive manufacturing for the two top Graphics Processing Unit designers for AI: Nvidia and AMD. In fact, Taiwan Semiconductor’s importance to AI is so vital, that other technology titans have been trying to influence China to calm its rhetoric about retaking Taiwan militarily over fears over a potential disruption of the GPU supply chain. The recent $165 billion US investment announcement from Taiwan Semiconductor to build factories in Arizona will also help to ensure the company’s protection.

• VEU’s other large position is in TenCent, which is China’s largest multimedia company. With divisions in video games, fintech, online advertising, and film production, among others, It is a media conglomerate that has smartly targeted marketing to the rest of the world with a slower and stealthy approach in the US. While its WeChat communications app is ubiquitous outside of the US and growing in popularity here, its 40% in Epic Games (publishers of Fortnite), and its sizable movie co-production projects include the hits Wonder Woman (2017), Venom (2018), and others.

• The overall larger allocation in the emerging markets sector and in the Pacific Rim will benefit VEU, since Europe only recently came to a trade and tariff agreement with the USt. Other international ETFs with heavier weighting in Europe will likely lag behind until those policies’ financials become manifest.

Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF

Longer candlesticks and a pattern rising or falling at a steep angle are visual records of increased stock trading momentum, something the Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF tracks.

Stocks that go on bull run tend to pick up speed and gain “momentum” that often gets averaged out over the long run when buying fervor wanes. The Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF (NYSE: SPMO) follows the S&P 500 Momentum Index, which is designed to measure the performance of approximately 100 stocks in the S&P 500® Index that have the highest “momentum score.” In general, momentum is the tendency of an investment to exhibit persistence in its relative performance; a “momentum style” of investing emphasizes investing in securities that have had better recent performance compared to other securities. The SPMO portfolio is rebalanced twice a year, in March and in September.

SPMO Top 5 Sector Weightings:

• Technology – 24.54%

• Financial Services – 18.88%

• Consumer Cyclical – 15.29%

• Communication Services – 14.40%

• Industrials –  9.48%

The top 5 largest SPMO holdings include:

• NVIDIA Corporation – 11.21%

• Meta Platforms Class A (Facebook) – 9.11%

• Amazon – 8.68%

• Broadcom – 6.00%

• JP Morgan Chase – 5.16%

As the annual returns and largest portfolio holdings show, SPMO’s focus on momentum over market cap size shows higher weighting towards Meta Platforms and JP Morgan over the S&P 500 top ranked stocks as reflected in VOO.

NEOS NASDAQ 100(R) High Income ETF

While investors who follow the NASDAQ-100 Index often turn to QQQ as their ETF choice, those seeking part of that upside but substantial income as well may look at QQQI as an alternative ETF.

The NASDAQ-100 Index is another popular benchmark for ETFs, since it focuses more on high flying technology stocks. It regularly outpaces the S&P 500 Index during bull markets, but will sometimes fall harder during market pullbacks and bear markets. The JP Morgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF (NASDAQ: JEPQ) has stood out among its rivals in the covered call ETF arena for its use of Equity Linked Notes. While it has become very popular with investors, the comparatively newer NEOS NASDAQ 100(R) High Income ETF (NASDAQ: QQQI) has garnered some attention of late for its use of NDX options on both the buy and sell sides. The added benefit of the NDX options are tax harvesting opportunities due to their section 1256 classification. QQQI’s performance earned it a “2025 Best New ETF Award” from ETF.com.

QQQI Top 5 Sector Weightings:

• Technology – 54.39%

• Communication Services – 15.85%

• Consumer Cyclical – 12.69%

• Consumer Defensive – 5.06%

• Healthcare – 4.72%

The top 5 largest QQQI holdings include:

• NVIDIA Corporation – 10.20%

• Microsoft Corporation – 9.29%

• Apple, Inc. – 7.19%

• Broadcom – 5.38%

• Amazon – 5.31%

The Compound DRIP and Other Strategic Thoughts

Use of a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) for monthly dividend ETFs like QQQI can leverage dividend compounding to accelerate growth.

• DRIP: As the poster is seeking growth to complement and exceed that of VOO, QQQI offers a strong dividend compounding component if utilized under a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) protocol. Since QQQI delivers dividend payouts monthly, one can reinvest dividend proceeds for additional shares of QQQI each month, and the additional shares will replicate the process for increased compounding. Alternatively, the dividends could be used to buy additional shares in VOO or other ETFs, although the dividend compounding element would not be as pronounced.

• Diversification: As opposed to loading up on one other ETF to accompany VOO, a mixed growth portfolio containing smaller stakes in any or all of the above might offer a cumulatively more robust growth rate without the associated risk of a downturn that would affect more uniform portfolios.

• Tax Deferred Accounts: As the growth portfolio is presumably for a FIRE retirement account, use of an IRA, 401-K, HSA, or related tax-deferred account is advisable. If a FIRE goal is reached prior to age 59, there are options one can take to mitigate some of the high bracket income tax and capital gains taxes that might ensue.

• Portfolio Monitoring: Although the investments may be in ETFs that have built in diversification due to their underlying index-based compositions, regular news monitoring for events that may impact the portfolio is a prudent step to take. An ETF issuer could run afoul of the SEC, an earthquake could impact the headquarters of an issuer, and a litany of other unforeseen events could still put one’s ETF investments at risk.

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