As I've often told subscribers to The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, the ETF business is booming, and Vanguard has taken every opportunity to grab its piece of the pie since it launched its first ETFs, then called "VIPERS," in 2001. Thanks to its success in the ETF business, it is once again the "nation's top-selling fund company," as Investment News put it:

Propelled by sales of its exchange traded funds, The Vanguard Group Inc. regained its status as the nation's top-selling fund company last year, edging past rival American Funds, which had been No. 1 since 2002.

Investors poured a net $76.2 billion into Malvern, Pa.-based Vanguard's stock, bond and ex-change traded funds last year, compared with $74.7 billion for American Funds, according to Boston's Financial Research Corp.

While there may not be much there for investors like you and me to be excited about, one thing is clear, and it's something I've told my subscribers for years: Vanguard is hands-down the best place to find low-cost mutual funds and ETFs. In fact, it's those low costs that often make the difference between outperformance and underperformance.