🔥 The most unexpected winner this year is not any single tech giant, but their "collective."
As of 2026, all seven "Magnificent Seven" U.S. stocks have surprisingly underperformed the Nasdaq 100.
Nasdaq 100: +16.16%
$NVIDIA(NVDA.US): +4.61%
$Tesla(TSLA.US): -12.51%
$Alphabet(GOOGL.US): +15.15%
$Alphabet - C(GOOG.US): +13.66%
$Apple(AAPL.US): +13.75%
$Microsoft(MSFT.US): -18.95%
$Amazon(AMZN.US): +5.13%
$Meta Platforms(META.US): -11.55%
If I had to pick just one of these companies at the start of this year, I might not have chosen correctly.
But if I had simply bought the Nasdaq 100, I would likely be more satisfied with the result.
Many people believe that with enough in-depth research, they can find the future winners.
The reality, however, is that the market never revolves solely around the fundamentals of a single company.
Last year, the market chased #AI chips, and $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) became the biggest winner; this year, capital expenditures, valuation digestion, and growth expectations are starting to impact stock performance.
$Tesla(TSLA.US) talked about Optimus and Robotaxi last year; this year the market is more concerned with sales, profit margins, and global competition.
$Microsoft(MSFT.US) is under pressure due to slowing cloud business growth, and $Meta Platforms(META.US), while continuing to invest heavily in AI, is still waiting for those investments to truly translate into profits.
Even with the most thorough research, it's very difficult to predict in advance how macro interest rates, capital flow styles, geopolitics, or even a single statement from management will change market sentiment.
Many people underestimate one thing: researching individual stocks is itself a cost.
Reading financial reports, listening to earnings calls, tracking news, analyzing industries—each requires a significant investment of time. And that time could have also been used to improve one's professional skills, spend time with family, or learn new skills.
If you end up spending hundreds of hours researching and still underperform the index, what you've truly paid is not just the opportunity cost, but also the psychological pressure of constantly enduring market volatility.
This is also the greatest value of index investing.
The Nasdaq 100 doesn't predict who the next winner will be; it simply continuously holds a group of the most competitive innovative companies.
Companies with stronger performance naturally gain more weight, companies with declining competitiveness are gradually replaced, and new companies are constantly added, keeping the entire index in a state of dynamic evolution.
Investors don't need to repeatedly guess what the next ten-bagger will be; they can instead share in the long-term development results of the entire tech industry.
This is also why more and more long-term investors use index funds as their core allocation and treat individual stocks as a supplement to enhance returns, not the entirety of their portfolio.
What truly determines long-term returns is often not which company you pick, but whether you can stay in the market for the long term.
Rather than staring at stock price fluctuations every day, it's better to invest more time in your own life and career, letting excellent companies continuously create value for you.
#NASDAQ100 #QQQ #Investing #IndexInvesting #StockMarket #USStocks #BigTech #AI #LongTermInvesting #ETF
