Jason Zweig of the Journal found a pair of twins this week. Same name, nothing alike. Two big “growth” index funds — same word on the label — are twenty points apart this year.
Quick translation first. An index fund is a fund that buys every stock on a list. The list is called an index. A committee builds the list using a formula, and the fund simply follows along.
Now the numbers. The iShares Russell 1000 Growth fund is up 4.6% in 2026. The Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth fund is up 24.3%. If you bought one believing you were buying the other, you have had either a wonderful year or a very quiet one.
How labels go stale
How does that happen? Labels. The committees decide what counts as “growth” — companies expanding fast — and what counts as “value” — companies that look cheap and steady — using formulas. And formulas go stale faster than companies do.
Exhibit A: Micron, the memory-chip maker, up 188.6% through July. Exhibit B: Sandisk, up 411.8%. Both are riding the AI boom. Growth stocks by any human definition. Both spent the year filed under value.
Together, those two “value” stocks produced about a fifth of the entire return of the Russell 1000 Value index. That value index is up 20.7% this year. Its growth sibling is up 4.6%. The labels did not just miss. They swapped jerseys.
None of this is a scandal. Nobody lied. The formulas were followed exactly. It is simply what happens when a shorthand invented for consultants gets treated as a fact about your money.
One bet, two tickers
Zweig has a word for what many investors do with these boxes: grazing. A little large growth, a little small value, one of every flavor. He calls the result “deversification” — the feeling of being diversified without the fact of it.
Here is the test. If your growth fund and your value fund both live or die on the same five chip stocks, you do not own two ideas. You own one bet with two ticker symbols.
And there is a deadline attached. In December, the index committees reshuffle their lists. Some of this year’s “value” winners will be relabeled “growth.” Every fund tracking those lists must then sell and buy to match — on known dates, at whatever the price happens to be.
If you own funds built on these style labels, that reshuffle happens to you whether or not you are watching.
The open-the-box review
So here is the standing offer, and it is concrete.
Once a year, bring us your statements — or just the ticker symbols of every fund you own anywhere, including the 401(k) we do not manage. We open every box. We pull the actual top holdings of each fund, lay them side by side on one page, and mark the overlaps in plain highlighter.
You will see whether your seven funds are seven ideas or one idea in seven wrappers. Most people find at least one surprise. A few discover their entire “diversified” lineup leaning on the same handful of stocks.
The review takes us an afternoon. It takes you fifteen minutes. The page is yours to keep, whatever you decide to do with it. Half the time the answer is “you’re fine” — and that answer is worth having in writing too.
A fund’s name is a marketing decision. Its holdings are the investment.