BlackRock, State Street Target Invesco’s $379 Billion Tech Grip

Wall Street’s biggest ETF issuers are circling Invesco Ltd.’s Nasdaq 100 franchise, threatening to end its near-exclusive hold on the index.

Just a day after BlackRock Inc. filed a challenger to Invesco’s Nasdaq 100-tracking ETF, State Street Corp. followed suit. On Tuesday, it submitted paperwork to launch the State Street SPDR Nasdaq 100 ETF, which would be its first fund focused on the tech-heavy gauge.

The BlackRock and State Street funds would be among just a handful of US-listed ETFs to solely track the Nasdaq 100 — and the first ones to not be managed by Invesco, which has run the $379 billion Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 fund (ticker QQQ) since 1999. Exchange-operator Nasdaq has been historically selective about licensing out its namesake index, comprising the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange.

While other ETFs that add derivatives to the Nasdaq 100 stocks trade stateside, Invesco has enjoyed virtually exclusive access to the pure Nasdaq 100 in the US market. That relationship has produced QQQ, one of the largest ETFs globally, as well as the $70 billion Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM).

Some analysts posit that the new filings may be coming on the heels of news of an upcoming fast-tracking of new firms into the Nasdaq-100. Nasdaq said recently that it would enact a rule change designed to cut the time it takes for newly listed, large-cap companies to enter its main index, a move that will give shares of behemoths like SpaceX a faster route into funds that are pegged to the benchmark.

“The Nasdaq 100 has become a cornerstone of sorts for investor portfolios, so issuers are doing what we’ve seen time and time again — imitating each other,” said Todd Sohn, chief ETF strategist at Strategas Securities. “On the other hand, though, I have to wonder if this is more about the potential IPOs coming down the pipeline and issuers wanting to have the Nasdaq 100 exposure ready for those interested.”