Did technology leadership come with materially different downside risk?
Oxaide compared SPY and QQQ over the same five-year adjusted-close window. The result kept volatility, tail loss, drawdown, and the limits of ETF proxies beside the conclusion instead of treating historical return as the whole story.
QQQ daily volatility was 1.44% versus 1.08% for SPY over the matched sample.
QQQ had a deeper maximum drawdown at -35.12%, compared with -24.50% for SPY.
Positive-day frequency was similar, so the risk difference was not simply a difference in how often each proxy rose.
Yahoo Finance public chart endpoints for SPY and QQQ
Historical adjusted-price proxies only. The result is not a forecast, recommendation, or substitute for company-level breadth and fundamental evidence.



