Tech funds rebound as Nasdaq closes at record high
Number-crunching by Saltydog Investor shows that year-to-date, despite the rise in stock market volatility, the best-performing technology-focused fund is up over 30%.
20th April 2026 13:45
by Douglas Chadwick from ii contributor
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Despite the fragile nature of the ceasefires between the US and Iran, and Israel and Lebanon, stock markets have been rising.
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After a challenging March, the world’s major stock markets have rallied strongly this month. In the US, the S&P 500 went into the weekend with a month-to-date gain of 9.2%, while the Nasdaq was up 13.3%. Both closed at new all-time highs. The rebound has been driven by the leading technology companies, and this has been reflected in the performance of the funds with high technology exposure.
Over the last 15 years, there has been a subtle shift in the dominant technology companies, and it could be about to change again.
This can be seen in the composition of leading funds in the Technology & Technology Innovation sector. In the 2010s, the FAANG stocks – Facebook (now Meta Platforms Inc Class A (NASDAQ:META)), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL) – were standard holdings, often representing 25% to 40% of assets and featuring prominently in funds’ top 10 holdings. Since 2023, the Magnificent Seven, which removed Netflix and added Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), mirrored this pattern, comprising 30-50% of many portfolios, consistent with their S&P 500 weightings.
With the recent explosion in AI capability, the landscape is changing again.
So far this year, the leading fund from the Technology & Technology Innovation sector is Polar Capital Global Tech I Inc GBP, up over 30%. The next best is Liontrust Global Technology C GBP Acc, up 20%, and then the T. Rowe Price Global Technology Eq Qd (GBP) fund, up 12%. The Polar Capital fund was also the leading fund in this sector last year, with a 43% annual return.
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Polar Capital Global Technology has differentiated itself by reducing its reliance on the Magnificent Seven in favour of core AI supply-chain companies such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd DR (LSE:SMSN) (high-bandwidth memory for AI processing); Corning Inc (NYSE:GLW) (fibre optics for data centres); Coherent Corp (NYSE:COHR) (high-speed optical transceivers and lasers for AI interconnects), Lumentum Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LITE) (optical networking) and Siemens Energy AG Ordinary Shares (XETRA:ENR) (power infrastructure), while also maintaining significant exposure to semiconductor foundries.
Polar Capital also offers the Polar Capital PLC-Artificial Intelligence I Acc GBP fund, which is in the Global sector. This fund takes a broader approach, blending supply-chain producers with AI-adjacent growth companies such as Walmart Inc (NASDAQ:WMT), Vertiv Holdings Co Class A (NYSE:VRT) and Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR.). This blend of investments covers the full AI spectrum, capturing hardware, data centre infrastructure, edge processing and industrial applications for distributed AI.
Barings Korea I GBP Acc, from the Specialist sector, has a geographical focus but still benefits from AI expansion. Heavy exposure to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, global leaders in memory chips and digital displays, has helped drive its spectacular growth over the last year.
These three funds each have a slightly different approach: Polar Capital Global Technology emphasises the physical supply chain, Polar Capital Artificial Intelligence broadens out into edge computing and ecosystem enablers, and Barings Korea has effectively leveraged Korea’s chip dominance. However, they have all outperformed the more conventional technology funds.
Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
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