With Monday’s big tumble, the NASDAQ Composite is now lower by nearly 5% over the past month, dragging PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ), the NASDAQ-100 tracking exchange traded fund, lower by 4.2% over the same period.
Ongoing weakness in the biotechnology space, QQQ’s third-largest sector weight behind technology and consumer discretionary, is pressuring the Nasdaq and the relevant ETFs. QQQ’s price action is not just determined by tech stocks. The consumer discretionary and health care sectors combine for about 35.5% of the ETF’s weight, meaning that the fund is affected by biotech stocks as well as names such as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX).
ETF investors can look to technology sector ETFs to capture the potential rebound. Tech ETFs were the best off sector during the Monday selling pressure, or at least one area that did not retreat as much. Those willing to wager on further NASDAQ declines can consider the ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF (NasdaqGM: SQQQ).
“SQQQ is one of the most aggressive leveraged inverse ETFs in its category, and it allows speculative traders and investors to place single-day trades against the NASDAQ-100 Index. As of July 31, 2015, SQQQ has a standard deviation, or volatility, of 36.59% and charges an expense ratio of 0.95%,” according to Investopedia.
SQQQ seeks investment results which correspond to three times (300%) the inverse of the daily performance of the NASDAQ-100 Index.