Andrew Bary
Palantir Technologies, MicroStrategy, Axon Enterprise, DraftKings, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, United Airlines, and Ebay lead the list of companies that could be added to the Nasdaq 100 index.
The Nasdaq is due to announce any changes to the index as part of its annual reconstitution at 8 p.m. ET Friday.
These are the largest non-financial companies (ranked in order of market value) in the Nasdaq Composite index that aren't now in the Nasdaq 100. The index is the basis for the popular Invesco QQQ Trust $(QQQ)$ exchange-traded fund, which holds more than $300 billion.
The market capitalizations used in the reconstitution are based on stock prices on Nov. 29, last month's final trading day.
The Nasdaq 100 companies with the lowest market values -- and thus vulnerable to deletion at the coming reconstitution -- are led by Moderna, Super Micro Computer, Biogen, CDW, and MongoDB, based on Nov. 29 data, Barron's estimates.
They're vulnerable, in part, because they have market values of less than 0.1% of the index's value. The Nasdaq 100 is now valued at about $25 trillion.
The Nasdaq 100 is composed of the 100 largest non-financial companies in the Nasdaq Composite index. This likely eliminates from contention such large Nasdaq-listed companies as CME Group, Coinbase Global, Interactive Brokers, and even Equinix, a real estate investment trust.
MicroStrategy gets classified as a software company, due to its main business before it became the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin with more than $40 billion of the cryptocurrency. Software probably accounts for less than 5% of the value of the company.
Nasdaq doesn't comment on which companies are potentially eligible for inclusion in the Nasdaq 100, but it makes available the industry classification of Nasdaq companies, allowing investors to make their own assessment.
Nasdaq uses Industry Classification Benchmark $(ICB)$, a product of FTSE International Limited, as the basis for its classifications.
Palantir moved to the Nasdaq from the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 26, citing its potential for inclusion in the Nasdaq 100.
While ETFs and index products based on the Nasdaq 100 are nowhere near as large as those based on the S&P 500, they are significant. Companies added to the Nasdaq 100 can rally on news of inclusion as indexers and ETF managers buy the stocks. Indexers own an estimated 2% of the Nasdaq 100, compared with over 20% for the S&P 500. That could mean indexers buying about $2 billion of MicroStrategy if it is added to the Nasdaq 100, and about $3 billion for Palantir.
Changes to the Nasdaq 100 tend to be mechanical, based on market value. S&P 500 additions, meanwhile, are based on a selective and secretive process by the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices that includes several criteria, including market value, profitability, and industry group.
There were seven companies added and seven dropped during the Nasdaq 100's December reconstitution last year. CDW, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, DoorDash, MongoDB, Roper Technologies, Splunk, and Take-Two Interactive Software were added.
Companies can also be added and dropped from the Nasdaq 100 during the year and outside the reconstitution event. AppLovin, for example, joined the index in mid-November, replacing Dollar Tree. At that time, AppLovin was the largest Nasdaq company not in the Nasdaq 100.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 13, 2024 11:46 ET (16:46 GMT)
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