Invesco has celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the launch of the Invesco QQQ, its giant Nasdaq 100 ETF.
Dan Draper, Global Head of ETFs at Invesco.
Introduced on 10 March 1999, QQQ has become the sixth largest ETF globally, with $66 billion in assets under management, and has one of the longest performance histories available in an ETF.
“Invesco is proud of the 20 years of innovation that have been marshaled through the Invesco QQQ and the access it has provided investors to pioneering companies that impact each of us daily,” said Dan Draper, Managing Director, Global Head of Invesco ETFs.
“Through products such as QQQ Invesco continues to focus on creating tools to help investors build portfolios that exceed expectations. We look forward to the next 20 years.”
The underlying Nasdaq 100 Index consists of the largest 100 non-financial firms listed on Nasdaq Exchange. It is known for being ‘tech heavy’ (although its current 43.2% allocation to technology stocks is some way off the 78% exposure the sector commanded at the end of 2000) but also includes communication services, industrial, retail, telecommunication, biotechnology, health care, transportation, media and service companies.
The largest constituents are currently Microsoft (10.0%), Apple (9.8%), Amazon (9.4%), Alphabet (9.1%), and Facebook (4.8%).
Highlighting its popularity as a tactical tool for gaining quick and efficient access to US large-cap growth exposure, QQQ was the second most traded ETF in the US during 2018 based on average daily volume traded.
Draper said, “When QQQ was launched in 1999, most investors were just learning about index-tracking investment products, and the transparency offered by an ETF was novel. It is interesting to look back 20 years later at how relevant and well-regarded the Invesco QQQ remains, even as much of the ETF landscape has changed.”
Bjorn Sibbern, EVP and Head of Nasdaq’s Global Information Services, added, “The resilience of the Invesco QQQ is a testament to the strength not only of Nasdaq’s global indexes, but the indexing industry as a whole.”
QQQ comes with an expense ratio of 0.20%. Additionally, the fund enjoys robust liquidity and has displayed an average bid/ask spread of just 0.65% during 2018.
Interestingly, despite, or perhaps because of, the fund’s success in terms of AUM, QQQ is currently the only ETF listed in the US to target the Nasdaq 100.
Invesco’s European-listed equivalent, the Invesco EQQQ Nasdaq-100 UCITS ETF (EQQQ), has also proved successful, gathering more than $2 billion in assets under management since its launch in 2002.