The PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGS: QQQ), the so-called Nasdaq 100 ETF, has already surged more than 33% this year.
Asking for much more near-term upside may border on being greedy, but that is exactly what is likely to materialize if the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) can crack some significant technical resistance.
The Nasdaq 100, home to the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq, “is attempting to break from a clean rising channel. At the same time this is taking place momentum is strong and reaching levels seldom seen in the past 10 years plus,” writes Chris Kimble of Kimble Charting Solutions.
The Nasdaq 100 has been in an upward channel dating back to 2001, the time of part of the index’s plunge after the bursting of the tech bubble.
While the Nasdaq Composite has reclaimed the 4,000, NDX has not resided there since 2001. Still, QQQ has performed well this year and that is with very little help from Apple (NasdaqGM: AAPL), the ETF’s largest holding. The iPad maker is up just 3% this year and accounted for 13% of QQQ’s weight as of the first week of December.
QQQ has, however, benefited from the Nasdaq 100’s increased exposure to consumer discretionary names compared to the days leading up to the tech bubble. On the Nasdaq, consumer discretionary stocks include high-flying story stocks such as Amazon (NadaqGM: AMZN), Netflix (NasdaqGM: NFLX) and Tesla (NasdaqGM: TSLA).