DCA
End value $178,042
Total return +194.3%
Annualized (XIRR) +20.5%
Max drawdown 30%
The fund behind the ticker
QQQ — the Invesco QQQ Trust — listed on March 10, 1999, and tracks the Nasdaq-100, an index of the 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq exchange. In practice that means a heavy tilt toward mega-cap technology: the top ten holdings routinely account for around half the fund. The expense ratio is 0.20%, and a cheaper sibling, QQQM at 0.15%, has offered the identical portfolio since late 2020.
For backtesting, QQQ's birthday is a gift. The fund went live almost exactly one year before the dot-com bubble burst, so its price record contains the single most brutal stress test any mainstream US index fund can offer: a drawdown of roughly 83% between 2000 and 2002, followed by fifteen years of climbing back. If a strategy looks good on QQQ's full history, it has survived something real. Our data starts 1999-03 and is refreshed daily, with dividends reinvested via adjusted close prices.
Three QQQ DCA scenarios, already computed
Each result below comes from this site's backtest engine at build time — $500 per month, dividends reinvested, no initial lump. Reproduce any of them by setting the same window in the calculator above.
Starting at the March 2000 top, held ten years
The nightmare start. A $60,500 lump sum invested at the peak was still worth only $27,881 (−53.9%) in March 2010, after watching the fund itself fall 83%. The monthly plan, feeding in the same total across 121 purchases, ended at $76,670 (+26.7%) — because most of its shares were bought in the wreckage of 2001–2003 at a fraction of the bubble price. This window is the strongest pro-DCA evidence in QQQ's entire history.
Through the 2022 bear: November 2021 → December 2024
Anyone who started buying QQQ at the November 2021 peak spent the next year underwater. By end-2024 the monthly plan stood at +43.5% ($19,000 in, $27,256 out) versus +34.8% for the lump sum — and it got there with a portfolio drawdown of just 15%, cushioned by ongoing contributions, while the fund itself dropped 35%. Averaging through 2022 was exactly what the strategy is designed for.
The leveraged version: monthly TQQQ, January 2021 → January 2025
The same idea in 3× leverage is a different animal. $500 a month into TQQQ over these four years turned $24,500 into $50,107 (+104.5%) — ahead of the lump sum's +97.5% — but the ride included a 62% portfolio drawdown while TQQQ itself collapsed 82% in 2022. DCA softens leveraged wipeouts; it does not repeal them.
QQQ, QQQM or TQQQ for a recurring plan?
Think of them as three risk settings on the same theme. QQQ is the standard: liquid, optionable, 0.20% a year, with history back to 1999. QQQM is the same portfolio at 0.15%, purpose-built for accumulators who never trade intraday — the sensible default for new monthly plans. TQQQ is a 3× daily-leveraged trading product from ProShares (launched February 2010, 0.84% expense ratio) whose daily reset causes value to bleed away in sideways, volatile markets; treat it as a small satellite position at most, never a core holding. All three are in the ticker list above, so the fastest way to understand the difference is to run the same window on each and compare the drawdown lines.
QQQ DCA FAQ
Is DCA a good strategy for QQQ?
It fits QQQ unusually well, because QQQ is one of the most volatile broad ETFs you can own — its history includes an 83% collapse (2000–2002) and a 35% slide (2022). Averaging in converts that volatility into lower purchase prices instead of a single terrifying entry decision. Be aware of the flip side: through the long 2010s bull run, a lump sum in QQQ beat a monthly plan decisively. Use the calculator above to test both across the exact window you care about.
Should I DCA into TQQQ instead of QQQ?
Only with money you can watch fall by more than half without flinching. TQQQ resets its 3× leverage daily, so in choppy markets it loses ground to "3× QQQ" through volatility decay, and it charges 0.84% a year versus 0.20% for QQQ. In our 2021–2025 backtest a monthly TQQQ plan did outrun the same plan in QQQ, but it spent 2022 down over 60% from its peak — and the fund itself fell more than 80%. Select TQQQ above to see whether you could genuinely have sat through that.
Should I use QQQ or QQQM for a monthly plan?
They hold the same Nasdaq-100 portfolio from the same issuer. QQQM ("Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF") launched in October 2020 with a 0.15% expense ratio precisely for buy-and-hold accumulators, while QQQ costs 0.20% but has deeper liquidity and an options market. For a recurring plan, the cheaper QQQM is the rational pick going forward; this page defaults to QQQ because its price history reaches back to 1999, which makes for far more meaningful backtests. QQQM is available in the ticker list too.
More backtests
The main DCA calculator covers all eight supported tickers — including QQQM, TQQQ and Bitcoin — plus the full methodology FAQ. Prefer the index everyone benchmarks against? Try the S&P 500 DCA calculator.