Fund comparison
VOO vs QQQ
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF against Invesco QQQ Trust.
Verdict
QQQ is largely a subset of VOO: 94.5% of its weight is already in the S&P 500. Adding it to VOO does not diversify anything, it doubles down on the largest companies in the index.
This is the most common pairing in US retail portfolios, and the overlap runs almost entirely in one direction. Of QQQ's weight, 94.5% is in companies VOO also holds. Of VOO's weight, only 53.7% is in companies QQQ holds. QQQ has 105 positions against 503.
What QQQ does is remove the other half of the S&P 500. JPMorgan, Berkshire, Eli Lilly, Exxon and Johnson & Johnson are in VOO and absent from QQQ, because they are not listed on the Nasdaq. What QQQ adds is thin: a handful of foreign-domiciled Nasdaq listings such as ASML, Arm and MercadoLibre.
The result is a more concentrated version of the same market. QQQ holds 46.4% of its weight in ten companies against 37.7% for VOO, has returned 90.7% over three years against 75.6%, and fell 22.8% at its worst against 18.7%. It also costs six times more, 0.18% against 0.03%, which on a $10,000 position is $15 a year.
If you hold both, be clear about what you have done: you have kept the S&P 500 and added weight to its largest technology names. That is a defensible choice. It is not diversification.
Where they hold the same companies
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Overlap by weight | 53.6% |
| Share of VOO held in common with QQQ | 53.7% |
| Share of QQQ held in common with VOO | 94.5% |
| Companies in both | 87 |
| Positions in VOO / QQQ | 503 / 105 |
VOO holdings as published 2026-07-31, QQQ 2026-09-01.
Largest positions held by both
| Company | In VOO | In QQQ | Counted as overlap |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDA | 7.56% | 8.49% | 7.56% |
| AAPL | 7.05% | 7.71% | 7.05% |
| MSFT | 5.37% | 6.02% | 5.37% |
| AMZN | 4.13% | 4.43% | 4.13% |
| GOOGL | 3.25% | 3.15% | 3.15% |
| AVGO | 2.87% | 2.83% | 2.83% |
| GOOG | 2.62% | 2.92% | 2.62% |
| META | 1.9% | 2.77% | 1.9% |
| MU | 1.44% | 4.69% | 1.44% |
| TSLA | 1.36% | 2.87% | 1.36% |
| AMD | 1.21% | 3.34% | 1.21% |
| WMT | 0.76% | 2.31% | 0.76% |
| CSCO | 0.71% | 1.93% | 0.71% |
| COST | 0.66% | 1.86% | 0.66% |
| INTC | 0.66% | 1.99% | 0.66% |
Held by only one of them
| In VOO only | Weight | In QQQ only | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| JPM | 1.47% | SPCX | 1.21% |
| BRK.B | 1.46% | SHOP | 0.76% |
| LLY | 1.41% | ASML | 0.68% |
| XOM | 1.0% | ARM | 0.44% |
| JNJ | 0.96% | MELI | 0.44% |
| V | 0.93% | PDD | 0.25% |
| MA | 0.72% | ALAB | 0.21% |
| ABBV | 0.69% | CCEP | 0.21% |
| BAC | 0.63% | NBIS | 0.2% |
| UNH | 0.58% | FER | 0.18% |
Cost, returns and risk
| VOO | QQQ | |
|---|---|---|
| Expense ratio | 0.03% | 0.18% |
| Dividend yield | 1.07% | 0.44% |
| Total return, 1 year | 20.4% | 25.7% |
| Total return, 3 years cumulative | 75.6% | 90.7% |
| Total return, 5 years cumulative | 80.4% | 91.7% |
| Volatility, annualised on 3 years of weekly returns | 14.4% | 19.6% |
| Worst fall in 3 years, peak to trough | -18.7% | -22.8% |
| Beta against the S&P 500 | 0.99 | 1.28 |
| Positions held | 503 | 104 |
| Weight in the ten largest positions | 37.7% | 46.4% |
| Weight in the single largest position | 7.6% | 8.5% |
| Assets under management | $1686.9B | $452.8B |
Prices through 2026-09-02.
Year by year
| Year | VOO | QQQ |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 12.3% | 15.5% |
| 2025 | 17.8% | 20.8% |
| 2024 | 25.0% | 25.6% |
| 2023 | 26.3% | 54.9% |
| 2022 | -18.2% | -32.6% |
Do they move together
| Window | Correlation of weekly returns |
|---|---|
| 1 year | 0.93 |
| 3 years | 0.95 |
| 5 years | 0.95 |
How these numbers are produced · Portfolio x-ray · Overlap checker