Nasdaq 100 Still 4% Below All-Time High, Underperforming S&P 500 for Ten Months
nashnova research
The Nasdaq 100 remains roughly 4% below its all-time peak — the only major US benchmark yet to reclaim its high — and its gap with the S&P 500 has persisted for nearly ten months, signaling a rare digestion phase for tech leadership.
How did this gap open up?
The split dates to October 29 last year: the Nasdaq 100 peaked that day and slid into correction territory, while the S&P 500 reclaimed its record high by mid-December.
A broad spring sell-off briefly masked the divergence as both indices bottomed almost in sync — but June's chip-stock plunge tore the gap wide open again: the S&P 500 shrugged it off; the Nasdaq 100 did not.
This means → the market isn't weakening overall; tech is falling behind on its own, and money is switching lanes within the same bull run.
Has this kind of split happened before?
Since this bull market began in December 2022, the two indices have logged 173 trading days of one-sided pullbacks — nearly half (84) in the past ten months alone.
Bloomberg's four-decade data set shows that in deep corrections — both indices down more than 10% — the Nasdaq 100 led the rebound 14 out of 16 times. But in shallow pullbacks where the S&P dips modestly and tech falls harder, the pattern flips: the Nasdaq 100 typically lags by two to four months.
In plain terms = tech bounces fastest in big crashes but recovers slowest in mild dips — and the current episode is squarely the latter.
AI is treading water — what is the rest of the market buying?
Strip out AI components and the S&P 500 is up roughly 8% since June 2, the equal-weight S&P 500 up about 5% — while the Nasdaq 100 is still underwater.
Inside tech, the split is just as stark: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed for three more weeks after the Nasdaq 100 peaked, then plunged nearly 30% — a bear market inside an index that had otherwise almost fully recovered.
This means → money hasn't left; it has rotated from chips into software, healthcare, and travel. The market is switching themes, not de-risking.
Are the mega-caps diverging too?
Microsoft has contributed roughly one quarter of the Nasdaq 100's rebound from its July low — the single biggest engine of recovery.
Apple, by contrast, has been the rally's largest drag.
On a full-year basis, however, the gap is far less dramatic: the equal-weight S&P 500 is up about 15% year-to-date, the Nasdaq 100 about 17% — ten months of theater, nearly a draw on the annual scoreboard.
Where do positioning and sentiment stand?
Goldman Sachs prime-brokerage data: hedge funds bought dips for three straight weeks through mid-August, then shifted to the fastest pace of selling in nearly two months. Information technology saw the heaviest cuts — the largest de-leveraging in over two years.
Leveraged funds spent roughly a month covering Nasdaq futures shorts; asset managers' net long positions have yet to fully recover.
This reflects institutions not turning bearish on tech but actively dialing down exposure to a single theme — cautious, yet still in the game.
What does the Nasdaq 100 need to catch up?
Morgan Stanley notes that hyperscalers — mega-scale cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure — now account for 19% of US non-financial investment-grade bond issuance, up from 2% in 2025, with off-balance-sheet commitments exceeding $3 trillion. Credit-level concerns have not faded.
Nvidia posted a beat-and-raise last week, but Bloomberg observes that the market half-life of good AI news has shortened visibly this summer; rising memory costs are also squeezing margins at some names.
In plain terms = the historical window is two to four months, but two conditions must both be met — semiconductor stocks need to stop bleeding, and the AI capex narrative needs to regain the market's trust.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。