A large and actively traded fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index has soared in November, heading for its biggest monthly surge since last summer as technology-related stocks surge, according to FactSet data.
Shares of the popular Invesco QQQ Trust Series I
QQQ,
an exchange-traded fund with $222 billion of assets under management, is up around 11% this month through Wednesday. With just one more trading day left in November, the ETF is on pace for its largest monthly gain of 2023 and potentially the largest since July 2022, FactSet data show.
The U.S. equities market has climbed this year, with the Nasdaq-100 index
NDX
seeing particularly large gains. The index, which has a large exposure to the technology sector, has jumped around 46% so far in 2023, according to FactSet data.
A recent decline in Treasury yields and market expectations that the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates has helped fuel November gains for the Nasdaq-100, which is heavily weighted to some megacap stocks, according to Alex Coffey, a senior trading strategist at TD Ameritrade.
While the Nasdaq-100 includes so-called Big Tech stocks like Apple Inc.
AAPL,
and Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
which have skyrocketed in 2023, less talked about companies in the index also have seen big jumps in November, Coffey said in a phone interview Wednesday. He pointed to cybersecurity stocks such as Palo Alto Networks Inc.
PANW,
Zscaler Inc.
ZS,
and CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.
CRWD,
as examples.
The top five holdings of the Invesco QQQ Trust Series I as recently as Nov. 28 included Apple, Microsoft Corp.,
MSFT,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
Nvidia and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
according to the fund’s portfolio data on Invesco’s website.
The fund slipped 0.1% Wednesday as the U.S. stock market mostly fell, FactSet data show. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
eked out a gain of less than 0.1%, while the S&P 500
SPX
dipped 0.1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite
COMP
shed 0.2%.
Investors have poured around $6.2 billion into Invesco QQQ Trust Series I over the past month through Nov. 28, according to FactSet data.
Meanwhile, information technology
XX:SP500.45
is the S&P 500’s best-performing sector so far in November, with gains of 12.8% through Wednesday. That surpasses the S&P 500’s 8.5% rise this month.
The S&P 500’s November performance has lifted its gains this year to 18.5% through Wednesday, while the index’s tech sector has surged 50.8% in 2023, FactSet data show.
Read: Would a 2024 recession be ‘dire’ for stocks? Why Citi expects S&P 500 earnings to climb next year.
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