A class of ETFs offered by Vanguard and traded like any other share on the American Stock Exchange. There are presently 27 Vanguard ETFs with underlying indexes covering both individual sectors (such as materials and energy)as well as domestic and international indexes. Previously known as VIPERS, the ETFs are designed to track their underlying indexes as closely as possible and offer the increased flexibility of intraday trading. Taobiz explains Vanguard Exchange-Traded Funds Vanguard looks to bring its leadership in the passive management market to the ETF space with this class of low-cost funds. Most of the underlying indexes are Morgan Stanley (MSCI) indexes, which cover not only equity sectors of the economy, but also small-, mid- and large-cap equity indexes. There are also ETFs for broad-based market indexes such as the Wilshire Composite (a unit of Dow Jones), which tracks more than 3,500 stocks.