The two heavyweight champions of the ETF world are heading into the second half of 2026 with very different scorecards. State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) sits on roughly $787 billion in assets under management, while Invesco’s QQQ Trust manages about $489 billion.
QQQ posted a 15.64% total NAV return in April 2026 alone. The S&P 500, by comparison, returned 10.49% over the same period.
The tech tilt and what it costs you
QQQ’s technology sector weight averages 61.78%, making it less of a “market” bet and more of a targeted wager on tech dominance. NVIDIA alone accounts for 9.05% of QQQ’s portfolio, compared to 7.85% in SPY.
SPY takes the broader approach, tracking 500 large-cap companies across every sector. It launched back in 1993 as the first US-listed ETF. QQQ followed in 1999, tied to the Nasdaq-100 index.
