The NASDAQ Composite is coming off a strong 2013 in which the home index for star stocks such as Amazon (NasdaqGM: AMZN) and Google (NasdaqGM: AMZN), just to name a pair, gained 34.2%. The PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGS: QQQ), the NASDAQ 100 tracking ETF, was a tad better with a 2013 gain of 36.6%.
The NASDAQ Composite closed 2013 at 4,176, its best close since the first quarter of 2000. QQQ closed just under $88. It has not close at $89 or higher since late September 2000. Those statistics have led to some chatter about NASDAQ 5,000, but that means a roughly 20% (19.7% to be precise) gain is needed this year. Some think investors should not bet on that happening.
“The level I have for the NASDAQ is the 4,292 level. That’s where we bumped up and hit there back in July 2000. And, I expect that to be the target that we might get to next year,” Andrew Busch, editor and publisher of The Busch Update, told CNBC.
Trading around $88, QQQ would need to gain 33.5% to reach its all-time closing high of $117.56 set in late March 2000. That means the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft (NasdaqGM: MSFT) and Facebook (NasdaqGM: FB) will have to do some heavy lifting.
To be fair, those stocks and plenty of others did plenty of heavy lifting for QQQ last year. The ETF was able to amass an almost 37% gain with a piddly 2.2% gain from Apple (NasdaqGM: AAPL). AAPL is QQQ’s largest holding with a weight of 12.5% or 480 basis points more than the weights given to Microsoft and Google. [Tech Not Driving NASDAQ in November]