Vanguard's active side

Riding the wave: Active assets under management have doubled over the past 10 years, growing in each year except 2008.

Fee focus: Vanguard's active mutual funds have an average weighted expense ratio of 27 basis points. The industry average expense ratio is 64 basis points for all funds, and 80 basis points for actively managed funds.

Managing the money: Vanguard manages just over half of the active AUM in-house, about $290 billion of which is fixed income. Wellington Management Co. is the largest subadviser with approximately $305 billion in assets across nine funds and has its hand in four co-manager relationships. PRIMECAP subadvises three funds.

Efficient returns: On an annual asset-weighted basis, the funds have produced positive risk-adjusted returns in each year of the observation period, climbing steadily in the four years following the recession before stabilizing in 2013.