Yes, QQQ is an exchange-traded fund. Officially called the Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1, it trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol QQQ. It tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, which holds 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq. With a total expense ratio of 0.20%, it’s one of the most heavily traded ETFs in the world.
What QQQ Actually Tracks
The Nasdaq-100 Index is not the same thing as the Nasdaq Composite. The Composite includes every stock listed on the Nasdaq exchange (over 3,000 companies), while the Nasdaq-100 narrows the list to just the 100 largest non-financial companies. That means QQQ excludes banks, insurance companies, and other financial firms entirely.
Because so many of the biggest Nasdaq-listed companies are in tech, QQQ is heavily concentrated in that sector. Technology makes up roughly 60% of the fund’s weight. Consumer discretionary stocks account for about 21%, with health care, telecommunications, industrials, and other sectors splitting the remaining share. If you buy QQQ, you’re making a bet that’s tilted heavily toward large-cap technology and growth companies.
Top Holdings Inside the Fund
QQQ’s largest positions read like a list of the most recognizable names in American business. As of April 2026, the top ten holdings and their approximate weights are:
- NVIDIA: 8.96%
- Apple: 7.05%
- Microsoft: 5.58%
- Amazon: 5.02%
- Alphabet (Class A): 3.55%
- Broadcom: 3.55%
- Meta Platforms: 3.52%
- Tesla: 3.33%
- Alphabet (Class C): 3.30%
- Walmart: 3.10%
Those ten names alone account for roughly half the fund’s total value. That level of concentration means QQQ’s performance is closely tied to how a handful of mega-cap stocks perform in any given quarter.
How QQQ Works as an ETF
Technically, QQQ is structured as a unit investment trust (UIT), which is a slightly older legal structure than the open-end fund structure most newer ETFs use. In practice, this distinction rarely matters to individual investors. You buy and sell shares of QQQ throughout the trading day on an exchange, just like any stock. Its price moves in real time based on the value of the underlying Nasdaq-100 stocks.
The fund’s total expense ratio is 0.20%, meaning you pay $2 per year for every $1,000 invested. That fee is deducted automatically from the fund’s returns; you never see a separate bill. QQQ also distributes dividends, though because it’s focused on growth-oriented companies, its yield tends to be modest compared to broad market or value-focused ETFs.
QQQ vs. QQQM
Invesco also offers a sibling fund called QQQM, which tracks the exact same Nasdaq-100 Index. The key difference is cost: QQQM’s expense ratio is about 0.05% lower than QQQ’s, which adds up over time for buy-and-hold investors.
So why does QQQ still exist? Trading volume. QQQ trades around $17 billion per day on average, compared to roughly $350 million for QQQM. That massive liquidity makes QQQ the preferred choice for active traders and anyone using options strategies, because tighter bid-ask spreads and deeper options markets mean lower transaction costs on frequent trades. QQQ also has a track record stretching back to 1999, while QQQM launched in 2020.
If you plan to buy shares and hold them for years, QQQM’s lower expense ratio will likely save you more money than QQQ’s trading liquidity advantage is worth. If you trade actively or use options, QQQ is the better fit.
Who QQQ Is Best Suited For
QQQ gives you broad exposure to large, innovative companies in a single purchase, but it is not a total market fund. It skips financials entirely, underweights energy and utilities, and leans so heavily into technology that a downturn in that one sector can drag the whole fund down significantly. During periods when tech stocks struggle, QQQ tends to fall harder than a diversified index fund like one tracking the S&P 500.
Investors who use QQQ typically treat it as one piece of a larger portfolio rather than their only holding. Pairing it with funds that cover sectors and company sizes QQQ misses, like small caps, international stocks, or value-oriented funds, helps balance out the concentration risk.