QQQ calculator
Historical growth of Invesco QQQ Trust using Nasdaq-100 (proxied by S&P 500 with tech tilt) return series. Dividends reinvested at year-end; expense ratio drag not applied to historical figures (use projection mode for a lifetime fee estimate).
$10,000 invested in QQQ at inception (1999) with dividends reinvested through end of 2024 would be worth approximately $75,608 nominal ($39,281 in 1999 dollars). Annualized nominal: 8.09%; real: 5.40%. Historical outperformance vs S&P 500 is real but comes with much higher volatility.
Uses annual S&P 500 total return (with dividends reinvested) and CPI-U inflation, 1928–2024. Source: Damodaran (NYU Stern) + Shiller CAPE + BLS. Excludes fees, taxes, and bid/ask. Real return = nominal ÷ cumulative CPI.
QQQ at a glance
| Full name | Invesco QQQ Trust |
| Provider | Invesco |
| Expense ratio | 0.20% |
| Inception | 1999 |
| Assets under management | $300B |
| Dividend yield | 0.70% |
| Return series used | Nasdaq-100 (proxied by S&P 500 with tech tilt) |
What a Nasdaq-100 fund actually is
The Nasdaq-100 is not a diversified index — it is a concentrated bet on the largest non-financial companies listed on one exchange, which today means a heavy technology and AI tilt. Its historical outperformance over the S&P 500 is real, but so are its drawdowns: it fell roughly 80% in 2000–2002 and took 15 years to reclaim its dot-com high. Treat it as a satellite growth position sized so that a 50% drawdown would not change your plans.
What 0.20% costs over 30 years
Expense ratios compound against you exactly the way returns compound for you. On a $10,000 position growing at a 10% gross return for 30 years, QQQ's 0.20% fee quietly consumes about $9,271 of the final balance. The cheapest fund in the same category, QQQM at 0.15%, would cost about $6,999 — a difference of $2,272 for holding what is often a near-identical basket.
QQQ vs same-category peers
| Fund | ER | Yield | Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ (this page) | 0.20% | 0.7% | 1999 |
| QQQM | 0.15% | 0.7% | 2020 |
How this calculator works
For each start year, we apply the year-by-year total return of the Nasdaq-100 (proxied by S&P 500 with tech tilt) to the entered starting amount, compounding annually with dividends reinvested at year-end. This mirrors what an actual buy-and-hold QQQ holder would have experienced, before fees and taxes. Expense ratio is intentionally excluded from the historical result to keep the underlying series comparable across ETFs; for a full lifetime fee estimate at 0.20%, use the projection tab in our fund fee analyzer.