The PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGS: QQQ), the NASDAQ 100 tracking ETF, jumped 36.6% last year.
While NASDAQ 5,000 and QQQ’s all-time closing high of $117.56 set in late March 2000 are still a long way off, it is unlikely investors that owned QQQ for all of last year are going to quibble with that performance. After all, the ETF returned nearly 37% with hardly any help from Apple (NasdaqGM: AAPL), its largest holding. [Nasdaq Sets Its Sights on 5,000]
It appears the NASDAQ’s evolution and the maturing technology industry have benefited investors. More than half of the Nasdaq 100’s constituents now pay dividends and QQQ has a trailing 12-month yield of just over 1%. That does not sound like much, but back in the NASDAQ’s go-go days of late 1999, the NASDAQ 100’s dividend yield was barely more than a tenth of a percent. [The Changing Face of QQQ]
Investors can play the theme of growing tech dividends with the First Trust NASDAQ Technology Dividend Index Fund (NasdaqGS: TDIV).
“Many of the underlying companies in TDIV are in a more mature phase of their business cycle which allows them to distribute earnings while still seeking long-term growth,” according to FMD Capital.
TDIV holds both NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange-listed firms and its 12-month distribution yield of 2.43% is considerably higher than that of the NASDAQ 100. Still, some of the NASDAQ’s most prominent names that have recently matured into legitimate dividend stocks are found among TDIV’s 87 holdings.