Nasdaq Breaks 6,000 for First Time

[cnxvideo id=”655420″ placement=”ros”]The Nasdaq Composite reached a new milestone on its way to a record high. The index traded above 6,000 for the first time. It is part of an historic run that has taken the index from the 2000 tech bubble all-time high of 5,132 set on March 10 of that year, to its horrible collapse that drove the index down to 1,108 on October 10, 2002.

The Nasdaq breached its 2000 record on June 11, 2015, when it reached 5,143 to set a new all-time high. Since then it has risen another 17%.

The Nasdaq Composite’s movement is mostly driven by the Nasdaq 100. Its movement is over 85% of the larger index’s movement. According to the exchange:

The Nasdaq-100 Index includes 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market based on market capitalization.

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The Nasdaq 100 in turn is dominated by a small group of stocks that have massive market capitalizations. It is not hard to see the effect of these, since all have outperformed the broader index in the past year. The Nasdaq is up 11%.

Apple is the largest of these at $753 billion. Its shares are up 37% in the past year. Apple is followed in market cap by Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), the owner of Google, at $608 billion. Its shares are up 19% in the past year. The third largest component of the index by market cap is Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) at $522 billion. Its shares have risen 30% in the past year. Fourth among the index in terms of market cap, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) at $433 billion, has risen 46% in the past year. The fifth largest component, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), has risen 32% in the past year to a market cap of $420 billion.

Although the Nasdaq Composite includes a number of non-tech stocks, tech is still its backbone. The rise of demand for consumer electronics, e-commerce, software and social media get much of the credit for the 6,000 record.

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