The Nasdaq-100 (NDX) is a stock market index made up of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. While the index is heavily weighted towards technology companies, it also includes firms from industrials, healthcare and consumer services. The index is commonly used as a key benchmark for the performance of the technology sector as well as the broader economy.

A stock’s weight in the index is based on market capitalization, with certain rules capping the influence of the largest components. The index is limited to companies from a single exchange, and it does not have any financial companies. There is a separate index for financial companies, which is called the Nasdaq Financial-100. The Nasdaq-100 is often abbreviated as NDX, NDQ, NAS100, or US100, in the derivatives markets.

The Nasdaq-100 is sometimes confused with the Nasdaq Composite Index. The latter index (often referred to simply as the “Nasdaq”) includes the stock of every single company that is listed on Nasdaq (more than 3,000 altogether).

History of the Nasdaq 100

The Nasdaq-100 was launched on January 31, 1985, by the Nasdaq. It created two indices: the Nasdaq-100, which consists of industrial, technology, retail, telecommunication, biotechnology, health care, transportation, media and service companies, and the Nasdaq Financial-100, which consists of banking companies, insurance firms, brokerage firms, and mortgage loan companies.

The base price of the index was initially set at 250, but when it closed near 800 on December 31, 1993, the base was reset at 125 the following trading day. Foreign companies were first admitted to the Nasdaq-100 in January 1998, but they had higher standards to meet before they could be added to the index. Those standards were relaxed in 2002, while standards for domestic firms were raised, ensuring that all companies met the same standards.

Historical Performance

The index value was above the 4,700 level at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000 but declined 78% during the stock market downturn of 2002.

The index made a gradual 5-year recovery to an intraday high of 2,239.51 on October 31, 2007, the highest reached since February 16, 2002. It then retraced back to below the 2,000 level in early 2008 amid the late-2000s recession caused by the United States housing bubble and the 2008 financial crisis. Failures of the investment banking industry led to market panic which resulted in a loss of more than 10% on September 29, 2008. The Nasdaq-100 reached a 6-year intraday low of 1,018 on November 20, 2008.

Quantitative easing (QE) from the Federal Reserve and increased expectations that the 2008 financial crisis was ending, the index made a volatile four-year climb higher, closing above 3,000 on May 15, 2013, for the first time since November 15, 2000.

By October 18, 2013, with Google Inc passing $1,000 per share for the first time, the index had made a closing high of 3,353.88, more than triple the value of its 2008 low.

Selection Criteria for Companies

The Nasdaq has a series of stringent standards which companies must meet to be indexed. Those standards include:

• Being listed exclusively on Nasdaq in either the Global Select or Global Market tiers.
• Being publicly offered on an established American market for at least three months.
• Having a minimum average daily volume of 200,000 shares.
• Maintaining up-to-date quarterly and annual reports.
• Not being in bankruptcy proceedings.

Since 2014, companies with multiple classes of stock are allowed to have multiple classes included in the index, provided they meet Nasdaq’s criteria. Prior to that, companies were limited to one class of stock in the index (usually the one with the larger market capitalization).

Annual Rebalancing and Re-ranking

While the composition of the Nasdaq-100 changes in the case of delisting (such as transferring to another exchange, mergers and acquisitions, or declaring bankruptcy, and in a few cases, being delisted by Nasdaq for failing to meet listing requirements), the index is reconstituted once a year, in December, when Nasdaq does an evaluation of its components, compares them with those not in the index, re-ranks all eligible companies and makes the appropriate adjustments.

As of June 2024, all companies are ranked by the size of their market values as of the last trading day of November.

Prior to June 2024, there were two tools which the Nasdaq used to determine the market values of companies for the annual review:

• Share Prices as of the last trading day in October.
• Publicly announced share totals as of the last trading day of November.

In determining the new composition of the index: The top 75 components that meet Nasdaq’s standards are automatically included in the index as of the end of the third Friday in December. The components that are in the top 100 of all eligible companies at the annual review are retained in the index.

Those that are ranked between 101 and 125 are retained, provided they were in the top 100 of the previous year’s annual review. If they fail to move into the top 100 in the following year’s review, they are dropped. Components that are not ranked in the top 125 are dropped regardless of the previous year’s rank.

The index also drops a company if, at the end of two consecutive months, it fails to have an index weighting of at least one-tenth of a percent. This can happen at any time. Companies that are dropped are replaced by those with the largest market value that are not already in the index.

The index publicly announces all adjustments, regardless of when they occur, via press releases at least five business days before the change takes place.

The index is rebalanced quarterly only if:

• One company is worth 24% of the index.
• Companies with a weighting of at least 4.5% make up 48% or more of the index.

The index is rebalanced annually, after the quarterly rebalancing, only if:

• One company is worth 15% of the index.
• The five largest companies by market capitalizations have weights of 40% or more of the index

Companies Incorporated in Foreign Countries

As of May 2025, the index’s nine companies incorporated in foreign countries are as follows:

• Shopify; Thomson Reuters – Canada
• PDD Holdings – Cayman Islands (headquartered in Ireland, previously China)
• Linde Plc – Ireland
• ASML Holding; NXP Semiconductors – The Netherlands
• Arm Holdings; AstraZeneca; Coca-Cola Europacific Partners – United Kingdom

Nasdaq 100 Components