Buy These 4 ETFs if You Want to be Rich in 2026, According to John Liang
Written by
Nicholas Morine
Edited by
Brendan McGinley
Commitment to Our Readers
GOBankingRates' editorial team is committed to bringing you unbiased reviews and information. We use data-driven methodologies to evaluate financial products and services - our reviews and ratings are not influenced by advertisers. You can read more about our editorial guidelines and our products and services review methodology.
20 Years
Helping You Live Richer
Reviewed
by Experts
Trusted by
Millions of Readers
Finance guru and popular YouTuber John Liang is frequently found offering easily digestible wisdom on financial matters on various social media platforms. It might not get more bite-size than his latest video, though, in which he predicts the best ETFs to quickly grow funds in 2026.
Having reached financial independence in his 30s, Liang recently took to YouTube to share the best exchange traded funds (ETFs) to hinge one’s portfolio upon.
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
Noting that it’s generally considered a smart move to anchor your investment portfolio around a broad-based ETF which tracks the entire U.S. stock market, Liang recommended the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) as his premiere choice to take on this role.
“VTI has exposure to roughly 3,500 companies with a median market cap of about $219 billion. Some of the top holdings in VTI currently are companies like NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon — just to name a few. And this is one of my favorite things about ETFs and index funds as a whole, in that we don’t have to call the winners because the winners eventually do just rise up,” Liang explained.
With an average dividend distribution of about 1.4% in addition to rock-solid gains for a conservative position, Liang was enthusiastic about this pick.
Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets (VEA)
Underscoring that a smart investor would do well to diversify their holdings by avoiding “home-country bias” with overseas opportunities, Liang recommended a second Vanguard ETF, the Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets (VEA).
“You’ll have exposure to roughly 3,900 companies spread across Europe, Canada, Japan, as well as Australia — though not limited to just those regions — with a median market cap of a little over $48 billion dollars. Some of the top holdings within include SAP […] ASML […] Toyota [… and to round it out, Novo Nordisk,” Liang said.
Over the past decade, VEA has delivered returns of about 7.9% annually, and most recently delivered dividend returns of 2.6%.
Vanguard Total Bond Market (BND)
Liang described investing in bonds as perhaps less than exciting, but also vitally important to stabilizing a portfolio, and with a healthy dividend yield of about 3.77%. Also, the YouTuber talked about Vanguard’s Total Bond Market ETF (BND) as having a low expense ratio of just 0.03%.
Also, as he highlighted, this particular bond-based ETF had outperformed its historically modest yields, up 4.97% YTD, describing the investment as a “shock absorber” for his portfolio.
Real Estate Investment Trust (Standalone or ETF)
“This is still where the bread and butter is for most folks, if what you’re after is financial independence or wealth quickly,” Liang said about getting into real estate, particularly via investment in a standalone real estate investment trust (REIT) or a REIT ETF.
While the finance personality didn’t list any particular REIT ETFs he favored, Liang did note that real estate provided the opportunity to scale much more quickly than other investment categories — particularly for those who opted to buy and live in their home, while also renting a portion of it out.
More From GOBankingRates
