Insight What’s driving the Nasdaq-100’s long-term strength?

Chris Mellor
• Head of EMEA ETF Equity Product Management
12 November 2026
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Key takeaways

  • The Nasdaq-100 Index offers exposure to innovative companies across technology, consumer products, healthcare, and other sectors.

  • Long-term performance has been strong, with the Nasdaq-100 outperforming the S&P 500 Index over 5, 10, and 20 years.

  • Artificial intelligence and other technological advances may provide a tailwind for companies investing in innovation and adapting to change.

The Nasdaq-100 Index is one of the most popular US stock indexes. But in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), passive ETFs tracking the Nasdaq-100 have only about USD$77 billion in assets compared with USD$463 billion for those tracking the US S&P 500 Index.

Are investors missing out?

A case could be made that the Nasdaq-100 may be the index of the future. It includes 100 of the largest US and international non-financial companies, heavily weighted toward technology, consumer products, healthcare, and giants like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.

Many of its constituent companies have demonstrated an ability to adapt to shifting market trends and evolving consumer needs, including by diversifying their businesses. Think about Amazon, which started as an online book retailer and expanded into web services through Amazon Web Services AWS, or Apple, which started as a computer maker and became one of the largest cell phone manufacturers in the world.

This same pattern of adapting to shifting trends can be seen in artificial intelligence. The companies building the infrastructure behind it — chip designers, data centre operators, and model developers — are largely Nasdaq-listed. Nasdaq has noted that the driver behind valuations appears to be shifting from what AI might eventually deliver to what these companies are already earning from it. It’s an index that reflects where capital is currently going rather than where it had gone.

Index keeping up with the times

An index can only reflect the economy if new companies are added to it. That has become harder. Many companies have been staying private for longer and have tended to arrive on the public market at a large scale. These stocks had often sat outside the Nasdaq-100 for months after listing. But Nasdaq made a change in May 2026 and now allows a larger new listing to join within about 15 trading days, without another company having to leave to make room. Controls are still in place. For example, a company with few available shares carries a smaller weight.

By contrast, the S&P 500 doesn’t have an equivalent route for new issues. For example, Tesla was added in late 2020, a decade after listing, and seven years after it was added to the Nasdaq-100. It gained more than 2,453% between the two index inclusion dates.

Nasdaq-100 outperformance

For more than 18 years, the Nasdaq-100 has outperformed the S&P 500. (See chart below.) It delivered a cumulative total return of 1,551.5% since 1 January 2008, which is more than double the 568.7% return of the S&P 500 Index. That’s an annualised return of 16.1% for the Nasdaq-100 compared with 10.7% for the S&P 500.

Is it a fluke or a meaningful trend?

Source: Nasdaq, from 31 August 2007–30 September 2026. Investments cannot be made directly into an index. See footnote1 for standardised rolling 12-month performance for the past 10 years for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indexes. 

Nasdaq-100 technology weighting and sector mix

There have been several factors behind that record, but one important reason has been the strong performance of innovative technology stocks over the past decade, particularly the tech leaders. For example, the S&P 500 technology sector delivered a 25.9% annualised total return for the last 10 years, compared to 15.3% for the broader S&P 500. That leadership makes sense due to the rapid pace of technological adoption in recent years. The Nasdaq-100 index has about a 60% exposure to the tech sector versus roughly 40% for the S&P 500.2

Although the Nasdaq-100’s overweight to the outperforming tech sector has been a tailwind for the past 10 years, it’s more than just a technology index. It includes companies in other sectors, such as consumer products and healthcare, that are transforming their industries and helping to drive growth. The tech sector doesn’t have a monopoly on innovation.

Some of the most innovative companies in the world have opted to list their stock on the Nasdaq. The index is associated with innovation, and it’s not surprising that many firms want to align with Nasdaq, which introduced the world’s first electronic trading platform in 1971.

Related insights

  • 1

    Bloomberg, L.P., as at 30 September 2026. Rolling 12-month performance for the past 10 years for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indexes. Past performance does not predict future returns

    Nasdaq-100 vs. S&P 500: Total return from 31 July 2016–31 July 2026

     Sept. 2025-Sept. 2026Sept. 2024- Sept. 2025Sept. 2023-Sept. 2024Sept. 2022-Sept. 2023Sept. 2021-Sept. 2022Sept. 2020-Sept. 2021Sept. 2019-Sept. 2020Sept. 2018-Sept. 2019Sept. 2017-Sept. 2018Sept. 2016-Sept. 2017Dec. 2025-Sept. 2026Dec. 2024-Dec. 2025Dec. 2022-Dec. 2025
    Nasdaq-100 Notional Net Total Return Index23.76%23.65%37.11%34.95%-24.90%29.28%48.33%2.38%28.51%23.63%20.83%20.77%134.62%
    S&P 500 Net Total Return Index15.34%17.14%35.76%21.01%-15.86%29.43%14.49%3.62%17.23%17.88%12.45%17.43%83.73%
  • 2

    Bloomberg, L.P., as of 30 September 2026. Sector exposure uses GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) to classify securities.

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