The Nasdaq-100 index is made up of the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the stock exchange. It's often used as a barometer for the performance of the technology sector, but it also features stocks from the retail, healthcare, transportation, and media industries.

The Nasdaq-100 is weighted by market capitalization, which means larger companies have a greater influence over its performance than smaller companies. The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving a surge in the value of some of America's trillion-dollar tech stocks, and the following five now make up 35.9% of the entire index:

The Nasdaq-100 is up 18.9% so far in 2024. However, the Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted index -- which assigns the same representation to all 100 companies regardless of size -- is up just 6.2%. The difference can be explained (in part) by the outperformance of the above five stocks, which have delivered an average return of 47.3% year to date.

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Source Fool.com