The Nasdaq 100 Just Hit A Record High — And This Time, It’s a Team Effort for the Tech-Heavy Index

Looking at your portfolio, it’s like April’s events never happened — in fact, some investors are now better off than they were before, having taken advantage of dip-buying.

On Tuesday, the Nasdaq 100 notched a new all-time high, surpassing levels not seen since Feb. 21. Briefly continuing its ascent on Wednesday, the tech- and consumer-heavy index hit an intraday high of 22,322.32 (or $543.11 for theQQQ

crowd).

So who’s fueling the comeback success? It’s not the usual suspects.

Tech tyranny: Mag 7 mainstays like TeslaTSLA

, AppleAAPL

, GoogleGOOG

, and AmazonAMZN

used to be among the mighty few lifting US indexes. But now, some of the index’s largest holdings are getting caught flat-footed — down 20%, 19.6%, 10%, and 3.5%, respectively. And at one point, their slump helped drag the broader index down more than 18% on the year. But no matter — these days, the Nasdaq 100 has discovered strength in numbers, with 66 of its 100 holdings in the green on the year. And decisively, it’s companies with a tech flavor leading the gains.

• The Nasdaq 100 can credit its heavy concentration in software, power utilities, semiconductor firms, and hardy consumer brands for its 5.6% year-to-date showing.
• Topping the leaderboard are government contractor PalantirPLTR
  , cloud security enterprise ZscalerZS
  , and memory giant MicronMU
  — up 87%, 73%, and 50% YTD.

Still Some Magnificence

Other top performers include Latin American fintech MercadoLibreMELI

, cybersecurity titan CrowdStrikeCRWD

, and streaming staple NetflixNFLX

— up 49%, 44%, and 43%, respectively, on the year. They’re joined by more than 53 other holdings outperforming the index. Among them are three Mag 7 firms still doing their part to put the Nasdaq 100 on top.

• MetaMETA
  , MicrosoftMSFT
  , and NvidiaNVDA
  are helping counter losses from weaker Mag 7 names — and with a combined weight of over 30% of the N100, they’re making a difference.
• Nvidia notched a record close Wednesday, thanks to its new cloud product, while Microsoft was upgraded by Wedbush courtesy of promising Copilot and Azure cloud revenue.

But valuation worries remain: Barely three months out from bear market territory, investors are once again wary of valuations — reviving a common theme we foreshadowed, when exuberance made US stocks command a premium. Investors are now banking on a new bet — that “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO) — in hopes of stocks finding higher highs. But with the end of the tariff détente approaching on July 8, geopolitical risk is back in the mix. Even as some US stocks are fetching more attractive fundamentals.