We recently talked about how the Nasdaq-100 (NDX®) ecosystem has changedand expanded in the 40 years since the index was launched.
Today we take a look at where the ecosystem is now – in terms of assets and liquidity.
$1.4 trillion in assets tracking $31 trillion in market cap
The Nasdaq-100 Index® represents, essentially, the largest 100 companies (ex-Financials) listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market®, which includes many of the leading innovators of the current century, and the eight largest companies in the world.
The total market cap of those companies adds to around $31.5 trillion.
The Nasdaq-100 Index uses Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) sector classifications. ICB puts many of the companies in the Tech sector, including NVDA, AAPL, GOOG and MSFT, but notably, TSLA and AMZN are included in the Consumer Discretionary sector. As the top row of bubbles in Chart 1 shows, there are also a number of other large companies ($100+ billion) from the Healthcare, Industrials, Consumer Staples and Materials sectors – with 10 of 11 ICB sectors represented.
Chart 1: Average 2025 market size (notional value) across global NDX products and constituents ($s)
In the bottom half of Chart 1, we show the assets and portfolios tracking the Nasdaq-100. These add to $1.4 trillion split almost 50/50 across exchanged-traded funds (ETFs/mutual funds (left side) and derivatives (right side).
Most of the fund exposures are in ETFs ($587 billion). The popular QQQ and QQQM combined make up nearly 70% of total NDX-benchmarked ETF market capitalization. But there are dozens of other ETFs, including many that use Nasdaq-100 options to add income or protect downside risk and some levered ETFs to provide additional up or downside beta. A sizable portion of the ETFs can even be considered actively managed.
On the lower-right side of Chart 1, we show the derivative products that have been built around the Nasdaq-100 Index. Nasdaq-100 Futures provided exposure worth over $130 billion, while Nasdaq-100 listed options provide exposure worth almost $400 billion on a notional basis. Although, as we have previously noted, most options are traded with a delta around 30%.
Alternatively, we could look at these assets as “delta-one” vs. “risk-oriented” investor solutions. Risk-oriented solutions would include futures, options, swaps and leveraged/inverse/options ETFs. Combined, they make up approximately 59% of the assets tracking NDX.
Risk-oriented products dominate $800 billion per day in liquidity
We turn now to look at the value traded each day in the Nasdaq-100 ecosystem.
Across all NDX products and constituents, the total notional traded on an average day in 2025 was nearly $0.8 trillion. Only around 30% of that liquidity comes from the 100 underlying companies. And of that, Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA), both retail darlings, saw outsized impact, with both trading over $30 billion on an average day.
Chart 2: 2025 Average daily dollar volume across exchange-traded NDX products and constituents ($s)
Instead, we see that the risk oriented products dominate daily trading value (liquidity). In fact, almost 98% of dollar volume from all products comes from trading in E-mini Futures, Micro E-Mini Futures, NDX Listed Options and the QQQ ETF (Chart 2). And that liquidity is dominated by the Nasdaq-100 Futures and Options.
An area to highlight is the enhancements made to Nasdaq PHLX (PHLX) Flex Index Options trading (the smaller dark purple blob). This supports the continued growth of Defined Outcome Products, such as Index-Linked Insurance, Structured Notes, and Option Overlay ETFs.
All this liquidity coming from hedging products should not be surprising. A while ago we tried to estimate who was doing the trading in U.S. stocks. The data then showed that liquidity providers, arbitrageurs and hedge funds added the majority of the trading we see in stocks.
Importantly, cheap and liquid hedging also helps keep markets efficient – allowing arbitrage to correct for even tiny price distortions.
The Nasdaq-100 of Today
The Nasdaq-100 Index ecosystem has grown significantly as more investors and traders, with different needs and return profiles, have been attracted to the companies the index represents. As artificial intelligence plays a larger role in investment spending, and looks set to revolutionalize workflow, the liquidity and investability of the Nasdaq-100 Index looks set to support even more investors as they seek to gain access to the Benchmark of the 21st Century.
This study is an excerpt from a larger report: Click here to view the full white paper on the Nasdaq-100 Ecosystem.
