He wanted Burger King but all they had was McDonalds . <| sep |> So the article is comparing 2 very different indexes and saying that 1 is better than the other because it has had more growth over the past 12 years . Just because they both own stock in the same companies does NOT mean they track the same index , they are tracking different indexes and have different expected returns and different volatility . As the article briefly mentioned , the other fund is much heavier weighted towards smaller companies not small , but relative to other companies in the fund . This goes into what people have said in this sub many times , smaller cap tend to have greater expected return and greater expected volatility over time . Also , it does not help with the bubbles it referred to , it just causes a different bubble . Instead of it being a more gradual increase or decrease in holding it suddenly causes a jump a company ' s market cap once the company is added to the index . Or , a marketcap weighted fund gradually increases the marketcap of the company as the company grows . Not much of a different overall as both still cause a large change in marketcap of the company .