It’s been a bumpy start to the holiday-shortened week for the Nasdaq 100.
The tech-heavy index fell more than 1% on Monday, reversing gains that led it to record highs earlier in the session. Intel, Starbucks and Tesla led the QQQ Nasdaq ETF, while Peloton, Nvidia and Netflix dragged.
Apple, one of the largest holdings, also notched a new record. That stock broke out last week on reports it is accelerating plans to develop a fully autonomous vehicle.
Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, says Apple’s gains suggest more upside for the broader Nasdaq 100, too.
“Apple is just getting going again and that really tells the story for the index overall where you have … Apple breaking above its September peak, really marking a resumption I think of what was a larger breakout above these stocks’ 2020 peaks. So I think there’s legs to that,” Wald told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Monday.
“It’s been the same story for the Nasdaq 100 overall,” said Wald. “The attractiveness to us is their ability to produce some of the steadier returns through the course of the cycle. Tech has been able to participate with the market, keep pace when we have the cyclical upswings and at the same time hold up relatively better when the risk-on indicators like interest rates and commodity prices have been stagnant.”
There may be some short-term volatility, but the Nasdaq 100 has enough long-term tailwinds to keep its momentum going, according to Michael Bapis, managing director of Vios Advisors at Rockefeller Capital.
“There are so many factors that are moving in the right direction for the Nasdaq and for these tech companies. The confirmation of Chairman Powell creates some stability; there’s so much money on the sidelines, which also helps that drive [them] higher, but also we’re in the middle of a technological revolution. I really just believe it’s going to continue for the next five to 10 years,” Bapis said during the same interview.
It’s not just the tech names, though. Bapis highlighted some of the non-tech outperformers such as Costco that have kept the Nasdaq moving higher.
“You have the undervalued non-tech names on the Nasdaq that are performing quite reasonably well and they’re going to continue to perform well as we see the shift from growth to value while the major tech names that make up so much in the Nasdaq are moving in a positive direction,” he said.
Some of the top-performing Nasdaq 100 stocks this year include Alphabet, AMD, eBay, Adobe and Lululemon. The index has risen 27% in 2021.
