[encoderer]

Your 20 months of returns hardly make a compelling argument.

We are in the midst of a 3 year old bull market. We are just barely off all time highs in the S&P and Dow. Nasdaq is also killing it -- even after some pullback in high beta (volatility) stocks.

Your returns the last 2 years are not typical of an average year. A return approaching double digits over a long trendline is not beyond reach, but it would be a mistake to bank on a 12% return IMHO, and even more of one to suggest other people could expect the same.

There are tons of calculators where you can play with average returns over time, check one out.

[MagicWishMonkey]

All of the vanguard funds have graphs charting the returns year over year since the fund was created.

The ones that crashed and burned in the recession are the ones most likely to provide a high return in a bull market, there are plenty that were largely unaffected by the recession (mostly securities) but you won't benefit as much from a bull market with those.

I have a blend of different funds.

[encoderer]

All ETFs and mutual funds have this, I believe it's SEC mandated. Regardless, your points may or may not be true but how something performs in a bull market isn't strictly the point. You need to average your returns over a long timeline.

There is nothing special about Vanguard ETFs, and even if you feel you are diversified there's an old saying that in a severe downturn the correlation of everything goes to 1. So most likely, in a downturn, everything you hold will go down, even if you feel you're diversified. This of course is not a law, just a probability.

(And just as a helpful FYI, both stocks and bonds are securities)