NASDAQ, the exchange, as we covered in Chapter 2, was born in 1971 as the world’s first fully electronic market. No trading floor, no specialists, no physical location where orders were matched. Just a network. The technology companies that would go on to define the 21st century found their natural home here from the beginning. Apple listed on NASDAQ. So did Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and NVIDIA.

The NASDAQ Composite tracks all companies listed on the exchange, over 3,000 of them. Because of that technology concentration, the Composite is effectively a technology-heavy gauge of the US market, even though it technically measures a venue rather than a sector.

The instrument that most investors actually use is the NASDAQ-100, which tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the exchange. This is the index that underlies QQQ, one of the most widely traded ETFs in the world. As of early 2026, technology and technology-adjacent businesses represent roughly 60% of the NASDAQ-100.

To understand what that means in practice, consider 2023 and 2024. The NASDAQ was up 43.4% in 2023 and 28.6% in 2024, both years driven overwhelmingly by the AI enthusiasm around companies like NVIDIA and Microsoft. In 2025 it rose another 20.4%.

Three consecutive years of 20% or more returns from a single index.

That run is extraordinary by any historical standard. It is also the reason why Indian investors in Motilal Oswal Nasdaq 100 ETF and similar funds that hold US technology ETFs have seen exceptional performance. And it is the reason why understanding what drives the NASDAQ, and what could reverse it, matters enormously right now.