Forget Tesla and the S&P 500. Peloton is now in the Nasdaq 100.

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While many investors kept a close eye

Tesla‘s

first days in the

S&P 500

– the stock is down 7% so far this week – the changes in another leading stock index went largely under the radar.

Last Friday, six new members joined the

Nasdaq 100 index,

which tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Exchange, including some of the world’s most innovative and fastest growing companies such as

Amazon.com

(ticker: AMZN),

Apple

(AAPL), and

Microsoft

(MSFT).

The index is up 45% so far, more than three times the 14% rise of the S&P 500.

Utility giant

American electricity

(AEP) is now part of the Nasdaq 100 after the stock exchange listing from the New York Stock Exchange to Nasdaq. Another new member is

Match group

(MTCH), which owns some of the most popular online dating apps such as Match, Tinder, and Hinge. The company went public in July as a spin-off from its holding company Interactive Group, and its stock is already up 47% since last Friday.

Home fitness company

Platoon Interactive

(PTON) has also joined the Nasdaq 100. The stock took a wild ride in 2020, rising 392% since last Friday when the Covid-19 pandemic changed the way people exercised and significantly increased the demand for home fitness solutions . . The stock rose another 16% this week after joining the Nasdaq 100.

The other three newcomers in the Nasdaq 100 are chip manufacturers

Marvell Technologies

(MRVL), cloud cybersecurity company

Okta

(OKTA) and software company

Atlassian

(TEAM). Last Friday, the three stocks are up 79%, 136% and 106% respectively so far. Their growing size has made them rank among the 100 largest non-financial stocks on the Nasdaq Exchange.

As those companies entered the Nasdaq 100, six of them have been pushed out of the index. They are

BioMarin Pharmaceutical

(BMRN),

Citrix systems

(CTXS),

Expedia

(EXPE),

Liberty Global

(LBTYA and LBTYK),

Take two interactive

(TTWO), and

Ulta beauty

(ULTA).

Those changes are reflected in the $ 149 billion

Invesco QQQ Trust

(QQQ) which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index. The exchange traded fund has been a popular choice for many investors and traders alike. As the fifth largest ETF in the US, its assets have grown sixfold in the past decade due to strong investor interest and the rapid appreciation of its holdings. In 2020 alone, the fund received net inflows of more than $ 19 billion.

In October,

Invesco

launched a cheaper version of QQQ with the exact same equity exposure: the Invesco

Nasdaq 100 ETF

(QQQM), where M is mini. While the original QQQ Trust currently trades about $ 310 per share and charges an expense ratio of 0.20%, the new Invesco Nasdaq 100 costs just $ 127 per share and costs 0.05 percentage points less.

Since QQQ is one of the most liquid ETFs in the US with a spread of only a cent between bids and offers, many short-term traders can continue to use it to reap profits with low trading costs. The newly launched QQQM, with lower share prices and fees, would be a better choice for long-term investors less concerned with liquidity and trading spread. The fund has already amassed $ 344 million in assets just two months after its October launch.

Write to Evie Liu at [email protected]