Apple (NasdaqGS; AAPL) has been dominating the tech headlines, with good reason as it has the market cap and revenue to push around most of its peers. However, for the exchange traded fund investor who is worried about the heavy hand Apple is playing on their overall portfolio, it may be time to consider an equal-weight methodology instead.
For example, the Dow was up 120 points on Monday afternoon but the Nasdaq Composite was in the red. Much of the divergence was due to the heavy weighting of Apple in the Nasdaq index. Shares of Apple, a hedge fund favorite, were down more than 3% on Monday.
Apple accounts for about 19% of the Nasdaq-100 PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ). [Nasdaq ETF’s 14-Week Win Streak Snapped]
According to a recent Business Insider article, earnings growth for the overall S&P 500 is expected to be 1.4% year-over-year, but if Apple were to be removed from the equation, the overall earnings growth would be closer to zero. [Apple: Why the Nasdaq-100 ETF is Beating the Market]
To put this in perspective, the last time the S&P 500 saw 10% of its 3-month returns from a single component was in 2000.