An investment of $10,000 in the Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 index, at its March 27, 2000, peak would be worth about $72,000 today—a 7.2-times return on the original stake with dividends reinvested.
The QQQ closed at $117.75 on March 27, 2000, marking the Nasdaq-100's top. The fund did not close above that price again for more than 16 years.
From its high, the QQQ fell steadily for approximately two and a half years, bottoming on Oct. 9, 2002, at $20.06. This represented an 83 percent decline from its peak. At this low point, the initial $10,000 investment had diminished to roughly $1,700.
With dividends reinvested, the investment first returned to its original value in February 2015, nearly 15 years after the initial purchase. The recovery proved uneven—the fund slipped back below its starting value repeatedly over the next 16 months before moving above its original value for good in mid-2016.
The fund did not close above $117.75 again until September 2016. Reinvested dividends advanced the recovery by about one and a half years.
The QQQ's recovery was driven not by a return of the era's leading companies to their previous highs. Cisco Systems closed at $80.06 on March 27, 2000, and did not close above that price until December 2025, more than 25 years later. Intel set its 2000 closing high in August of that year, a level not surpassed until April 2026. Microsoft recovered faster, reaching its 2000 high in 2016.
The QQQ surpassed its previous peak almost a decade before Cisco and Intel reached theirs. This divergence reflects the index's design: it holds the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq, weighted by market capitalization. As market leadership shifted, the fund's composition adapted, allowing the peak-era buyer to benefit from the winners of subsequent eras.
Even with the worst possible entry point, the annualized total return from March 2000 translates to about 7.8 percent over 26 and a half years. For comparison, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, a broad market alternative, performed slightly better from the same starting point.
