SPY and QQQ are two of the most heavily traded U.S. stock ETFs. SPY tracks the S&P 500, a broad index of large U.S. companies across every sector. QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, which leans heavily toward technology and a handful of very large growth companies. Putting their returns side by side shows whether a market move is spread across the economy or driven by a small group of big names. Every weekly comparison we have published is listed at the end of this page.
Recent Readings
- Latest week (October 9, 2026): SPY +1.16%, QQQ +0.23%. SPY led by 0.93 percentage points.
- Leadership count: QQQ outperformed in 6 of 14 weeks, SPY in 8.
- Widest gaps: QQQ ahead by 2.87 points in the week to August 5, 2026; SPY ahead by 3.78 points in the week to July 29, 2026.
- Coverage: 15 weekly readings from June 24, 2026 to October 9, 2026.
What Each Fund Holds
SPY, launched in 1993, was the first U.S.-listed ETF. The S&P 500 it tracks is chosen by a committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, which requires companies to be based in the U.S., profitable, and large and liquid enough to trade easily. Banks, insurers, energy producers, utilities, and health care companies all sit alongside technology.
QQQ, launched in 1999, follows a simpler rule: the Nasdaq-100 holds the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. There are no banks, and technology makes up roughly half the index or more, with communication services and consumer names such as Amazon and Tesla filling much of the rest. Nearly all of its large holdings are also in the S&P 500, so the two funds overlap heavily at the top and differ mainly in the hundreds of companies SPY owns that QQQ does not.
Both indexes weight companies by market value, so the largest names dominate. In recent years the ten biggest companies have made up more than a third of the S&P 500 and around half of the Nasdaq-100. That is a higher concentration than at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, when the top ten were roughly a quarter of the S&P 500. A big day for Apple, Microsoft, or NVIDIA moves both funds, but it moves QQQ further.
Reading the Gap: Six Common Patterns
These are the usual readings of each weekly combination.
| Weekly pattern | What it usually points to |
|---|---|
| Both up, QQQ up more | A growth-led rally. The large technology names are doing most of the lifting. |
| Both up, SPY up more | The rally is broadening. Financials, industrials, health care, and other sectors outside the Nasdaq-100 are joining in. |
| Both down, QQQ down more | Selling is concentrated in growth stocks, often because yields are rising or a mega-cap disappointed. |
| Both down, SPY down more | Weakness is outside technology, while tech holds up relatively well. |
| QQQ up, SPY down | A narrow market. A few large names are carrying the index while most sectors slip. |
| SPY up, QQQ down | Rotation out of technology into value and cyclical stocks. |
Treat these as starting points and check which stocks drove the move before drawing a conclusion about the whole market.
Why QQQ Usually Moves More
The Nasdaq-100 holds fewer companies, concentrated in one broad part of the market, and their valuations depend heavily on profits expected years ahead. As a result, QQQ tends to rise more in rallies and fall more in sell-offs. The Nasdaq-100 gained about 54% in 2023, when the S&P 500 rose about 24%. In 2022 it lost about 33% against the S&P 500’s 19%. From the dot-com peak in March 2000 to the low in October 2002, it fell about 83%, while the S&P 500 fell about 49%.
Keep this in mind when judging a gap. A week in which SPY falls 1% and QQQ falls 1.3% is ordinary. The comparison starts to say something when the gap is much larger, such as QQQ falling twice as far, or when the two funds move in opposite directions.
What Usually Opens a Gap
Most large gaps between the two funds trace back to one of three things.
- Interest rates. Growth valuations are more sensitive to discount rates, so a sharp rise in Treasury yields usually hits QQQ harder than SPY, and a sharp fall helps it more. Our 10-year Treasury yield guide covers this link in detail.
- Mega-cap earnings. Most of the largest Nasdaq-100 companies report within a few weeks of each other in late January, April, July, and October. Index math makes single stocks matter: a 10% jump in a company with a 9% weight adds about 0.9% to the index before any other stock moves.
- Sectors QQQ barely owns. Banks, energy producers, and utilities are a meaningful slice of the S&P 500 but are largely absent from the Nasdaq-100. A rally in oil or bank stocks, or a move into defensive utilities, can lift SPY relative to QQQ without any change in how investors feel about technology.
One Day Versus One Week
One earnings report, one analyst downgrade, or a large options expiration can pull QQQ away from SPY for a session, and the move often reverses the next day. Our posts show both columns because they frequently disagree. The week to July 8, 2026 is a clear case in our archive: QQQ rose 0.28% that Wednesday while SPY slipped 0.31%, yet over the full week QQQ trailed SPY by more than three percentage points.
A run of weeks leaning the same way carries more weight. Several straight weeks of SPY ahead suggests money is spreading into the rest of the market. A string of QQQ-led weeks points to a rally that depends on fewer stocks. The leadership count at the top of this page tracks that balance across our archive.
What This Comparison Cannot Tell You
SPY versus QQQ measures leadership, while market breadth in the strict sense counts how many stocks are taking part and needs different data. The most common measures are the advance-decline line, which tracks rising stocks minus falling stocks each day; the share of stocks trading above their 200-day moving average; and the number of new 52-week highs against new lows.
Another useful check is the equal-weight S&P 500, tracked by the RSP ETF, which gives every company the same weight. When the standard S&P 500 beats its equal-weight version by a wide margin, a few giants are doing most of the work. In 2023 the equal-weight index gained roughly half as much as the standard one. SPY and QQQ can both rise while most stocks fall, and comparing the two would not reveal it.
Weekly SPY vs QQQ Archive
Through September 30, 2026, we published a breadth analysis every Thursday based on Wednesday’s U.S. session close. Since October, SPY and QQQ are covered in our Sunday weekly report, based on Friday’s close, and those weeks are added here. The table lists the daily and weekly changes used in each post. The last column subtracts SPY’s weekly change from QQQ’s, so a positive number means QQQ led. The first post in the series reported daily changes only.
| Session | SPY day | QQQ day | SPY week | QQQ week | Weekly gap (QQQ minus SPY) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 9, 2026 | +0.60% | +0.49% | +1.16% | +0.23% | -0.93 pts |
| October 2, 2026 | +0.74% | +1.02% | -0.22% | +0.68% | +0.90 pts |
| September 30, 2026 | -0.21% | +0.25% | -0.67% | -0.19% | +0.48 pts |
| September 9, 2026 | -0.46% | -0.29% | +0.08% | +1.23% | +1.15 pts |
| September 2, 2026 | +0.44% | +0.23% | -0.12% | -0.30% | -0.18 pts |
| August 26, 2026 | +0.02% | +0.09% | -0.39% | -0.66% | -0.27 pts |
| August 19, 2026 | +0.21% | -0.20% | -0.44% | -1.05% | -0.61 pts |
| August 12, 2026 | +0.25% | +0.73% | +0.35% | +0.89% | +0.54 pts |
| August 5, 2026 | -0.20% | -0.90% | +5.53% | +8.40% | +2.87 pts |
| July 29, 2026 | -1.54% | -2.04% | -2.40% | -6.18% | -3.78 pts |
| July 22, 2026 | -0.12% | -0.51% | -0.98% | -1.73% | -0.75 pts |
| July 15, 2026 | +0.40% | -0.27% | +1.26% | +0.89% | -0.37 pts |
| July 8, 2026 | -0.31% | +0.28% | -0.18% | -3.39% | -3.21 pts |
| July 1, 2026 | -0.14% | -1.52% | +1.71% | +2.05% | +0.34 pts |
| June 24, 2026 | -1.45% | -3.29% | — | — | — |
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