Vanguard Extended Market ETF Launches
By IndexFunds Staff

Vanguard Extended Market VIPERs, the exchange-traded fund to track the Wilshire 4500 Completion Index, will begin trading on January 4, 2002, on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol VXF. Vanguard Extended Market VIPERs (for Vanguard Index Participation Equity Receipts) are an exchange-traded class of shares of the $4.4 billion Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund,

"Vanguard's Extended Market VIPER shares are the next step in our development of the VIPERs concept," said George Sauter, Managing Director of Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group. "Our goal is to provide all investors access to our broad lineup of index offerings, either through traditional mutual fund shares or exchange-traded shares."

The Wilshire 4500 Completion Index of small- and mid-capitalization stock index includes all of the stocks in the Wilshire 5000 Index, excluding the stocks of the Standard and Poor's 500 Index. It is a convenient index for portfolios with S&P 500 holdings to complete their exposure to US equity markets. The Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund (VEXMX) was introduced in 1987 as the first mutual fund to track the Wilshire 4500.

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