While the broad technology exchange traded funds are being weighed down by the pessimistic outlook on Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL), the largest component stock in the sector, equal-weight tech ETFs have been outperforming their market-cap counterparts.
Apple shares were down about 10% in Thursday’s premarket after the Wall Street darling reported quarterly results that disappointed bullish investors.
The stock is off about 16% for the three months ended Jan. 23.
Apple beat consensus revenue estimates and delivered net income higher than its guidance, but disappointed on iPhone and iPad sales, said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello.
“So it wasn’t the sort of blow-out quarter that you might normally expect and maybe what bullish investors were hoping for in light of all of these new product launches. The bigger issue, I think, was the forecast for the March quarter, their fiscal second quarter. That was much lighter than expected,” Colello said. “Again, if you had a blow-out quarter, you could see Apple maybe getting away with a lighter forecast for March, but since the December quarter was in line, that March forecast is especially disappointing.”
For instance, the Nasdaq-100 PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ) has added 1% over the past three months, whereas the First Trust NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Index Fund (NasdaqGM: QQEW) gained 7.7%. [Equal-Weighted Nasdaq ETF Dodges Apple Sell-Off]
Looking at the relative chart of QQEW compared to QQQ, the equal-weight fund started to turn around late September.
The PowerShares QQQ’s top holdings include Apple 15.0%, Microsoft (NasdaqGS: MSFT) 7.2%, Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG) 6.1%, Oracle (NasdaqGS: ORCL) 5.4% and Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN). The market-cap breakdown includes large-cap growth 76.9%, large-cap value 8.0%, mid-cap growth 13.2% and mid-cap value 1.8%.