As has been widely noted, technology is the best-performing sector in the S&P 500 this year. Predictably, that is helping an array of exchange traded funds tracking the sector deliver stellar performances while adding new assets.
Investors are also turning a familiar ETF for their technology exposure: the PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ), which tracks the tech heavy Nasdaq-100. Up 20.6% year-to-date, QQQ resides near record highs and has been buoyed by mega-cap tech and Internet names such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).
For the week ended May 26, investors “added $1.78 billion in a single day to the PowerShares QQQ Trust Series 1 ETF, a fund that tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index. While not a pure tech play, QQQ holds companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX),” stocks not found in dedicated technology ETFs, reports Carolina Wilson for Bloomberg.
Amazon and Netflix are classified as consumer discretionary stocks. As a result, they reside in consumer discretionary, not technology ETFs. QQQ allocates 22.1% of its weight to consumer discretionary stocks, its second-largest sector weight after 58.6% to technology.
QQQ is a popular alternative. And technology has been a great place to be in recent months. Since the November U.S. presidential election, technology is the best-performing sector.