If You Invested $1,000 In The Invesco QQQ ETF At Its COVID-19 Pandemic Low, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Investors who bought stocks during the COVID-19 market crash in 2020 have generally experienced some big gains in the past two years. But there is no question some investments performed better than others along the way.

Tech's Bumpy Ride: While the stock market has been extremely strong since it bottomed on March 23, 2020, the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ has cooled off significantly since mid-2021.

The QQQ ETF tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index, the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange.

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Pandemic Sell-Off: The QQQ fund started 2020 on a high note, rising from around $215 to start the year to a pre-pandemic high of $237.47 in mid-February. Unfortunately, over the next several weeks, the bottom completely fell out of the market thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The QQQ ETF plummeted as low as $165 on March 23, 2020, the same day the S&P 500 bottomed. At the time, investors had no idea March 23 would mark the end of the shortest bear market in U.S. history, at just 33 days in duration.

By April 7, the QQQ was back above $200. By June 4, the fund was back at new all-time highs, but the rally certainly didn’t stop there. The combination of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, unprecedented government stimulus measures, a virus mortality rate that was much better than initially feared and a handful of effective vaccines sent growth stock prices skyrocketing well above pre-pandemic levels.

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Limping Into 2023: Two brief tech stock sell-offs in September and October of 2020 were mere bumps in the road for the QQQ on its march to all-time highs of $408.71 in November 2021.

Unfortunately, concerns about inflation and aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes in 2022 drove the QQQ fund all the way back down to as low as $254.26 in October 2022. The fund has since rebounded to $284.82.

Investors who bought the QQQ fund at its pandemic low and held on to today have now underperformed the total return of the SPY in that time. In fact, $1,000 in the QQQ ETF bought on March 23, 2020, would be worth about $1,695 today, assuming reinvested dividends.

Looking ahead, the fate of QQQ investors rests largely in the hands of Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Apple, Inc. AAPL. Together, those two tech behemoths represent a combined 23.7% of the QQQ’s total assets.

Photo: Courtesy of Guillaume on flickr