Indian investors get access to Vanguard

International investing is the new smash hit in the mutual fund ecosystem. A category that had 35 schemes till 2019 is now flourishing with 64 funds, a rise of a whopping 83% in just two years! Well, a lot of this can be attributed to blockbuster post-COVID returns in global markets, particularly the US which has enthused Indian investors the most. Then, of course, there are rupee depreciation and geographical diversification benefits as well. Joining this hot space now, Navi Mutual Fund has rolled out a new fund offer (NFO) on February 04, 2022, the Navi US Total Stock Market FoF. The subscription period for the fund will close on February 18, 2022. What makes this fund even hotter is the fact that currently, it is the only gateway for Indians to invest in Vanguard, the pioneer of offering low-cost passive fund management schemes. It's certainly like an Aha! moment for passive junkies. This NFO comes at a time when the mutual fund industry is on the brink of exhausting permissible foreign exposure as per SEBI rules and has therefore put gates on fresh investments in many of the international mutual funds. However, there is no impact on the schemes that invest in foreign ETFs (as also in the case of this NFO launched by Navi) because they have a separate limit, and there is enough runway there for now. You can read more about it here. About the strategy The Navi US Total Stock Market FoF is a fund of funds that aims to invest in the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI). VTI is the third-largest ETF in the world