IQ
ETFIQ Research · rebuilt every trading night

How much of a theme is already the index

By their latest holdings filings, the typical thematic ETF has 32% of its weight in stocks the S&P 500 already holds, and 74 of 391 funds are more than sixty percent index names.

Across 54 themes and 419 funds, the median fee is 0.60%; measured against only the part of each fund that differs from the S&P 500, the median fee for the difference is 0.60%. 131 pairs of funds hold portfolios that are more than half identical by weight; holding both is close to holding one of them twice.

Share on XDownload as PDFEvery thematic ETF, live
Beat the S&P 500 over one year, by theme
Broad innovation and megatrends
15 of 28
Artificial intelligence
16 of 24
Clean energy
0 of 16
Defense
0 of 14
Infrastructure
0 of 14
Internet and e-commerce
0 of 13
Blockchain and crypto equities
0 of 13
Semiconductors
9 of 9
Gold miners
6 of 9
Biotech
8 of 8
Electrification and the grid
3 of 8
Nuclear and uranium
0 of 8

57 of 164 thematic ETFs with a full year beat the S&P 500 over the year to Oct 9, 2026.

ETFIQ Narrative

A look inside thematic ETF portfolios shows how much of what they hold is already available through a plain S&P 500 fund. Across 391 funds with usable holdings data, the typical, or median, thematic ETF has 32% of its weight in stocks the S&P 500 already holds. That leaves a median active share of roughly two-thirds of the portfolio made up of names outside the index, though the split varies widely by theme. Seventy-four of the 391 funds hold more than sixty percent of their weight in index names.

The theme-by-theme numbers show where that overlap concentrates. Energy security and critical technology funds carry a median 85% of their weight in S&P 500 constituents, the highest of any theme listed, alongside a median active share of 95%. AI infrastructure and chips (64%) and semiconductors (63%) also sit high on the in-index measure, while funds built around gold miners (5%), cannabis (0%), coal (0%) and silver miners (2%) hold almost none of their weight in S&P 500 names, pushing active share for those groups to 100%.

Fees sit at a median 0.60% across the 419 funds and 54 themes in the full table. When the fee is measured only against the part of each portfolio that differs from the S&P 500, the median fee for that difference is also 0.60%, meaning that, overall, paying for a thematic ETF is roughly the same, fee-for-fee, as paying for its non-index portion. Within individual themes the two numbers sometimes diverge. Semiconductors, for example, shows a median fee of 0.30% but a median fee for the difference of 0.40%, and artificial intelligence moves from 0.70% to 0.80% on the same measure, reflecting how much of each portfolio's cost is tied to holdings that overlap with the index.

One-year returns and index overlap do not move in a single direction across the theme table. Semiconductors funds beat the S&P 500 in 9 of 9 cases with a median one-year return of +84.4%, despite a 63% in-index median weight. Defense funds, by contrast, beat the index in 0 of 14 cases with a median return of −6.8%, despite a lower in-index weight of 40%. Gold miners, with only 5% of weight in index names, beat the S&P 500 in 6 of 9 cases and returned +22.8%.

A separate check on portfolio overlap between funds, rather than against the index, finds 131 pairs across the dataset holding more than half the same names by weight. The listed pairs include PDBA and EVMT in agriculture, fully identical in weight overlap at 100%, and IBBQ and IBB in biotech, overlapping 85% with fees of 0.19% and 0.44% respectively. Semiconductor pairs such as SOXQ and SOXX (82%) and SHOC and SMH (78%) also appear, each with differing fee levels attached to similar underlying holdings.

Readers can check any fund's current in-index weight, active share and fee numbers, along with its latest one-year return, against the live desk.

Median weight already in the S&P 500, by theme
Energy security and critical technology
85%
Millennial and Gen Z consumers
66%
AI infrastructure and chips
64%
Semiconductors
63%
Digital infrastructure and data centers
62%
Artificial intelligence
56%
Cooling and thermal management
56%
Longevity and aging
55%
Electrification and the grid
51%
Broad innovation and megatrends
50%
Beauty and personal care
47%
Cloud and software
46%

Across 419 thematic ETFs on Oct 9, 2026, each bar is a theme’s median weight already in the S&P 500.

By theme, largest assets first

ThemeFundsMedian in the S&P 500Median active shareMedian feeMedian fee for the differenceBeat the S&P 500, one yearMedian total return, one year
Semiconductors1163%85%0.30%0.40%9 of 9+84.4%
Defense2240%98%0.50%0.50%0 of 14−6.8%
Artificial intelligence3656%80%0.70%0.80%16 of 24+28.6%
Gold miners105%100%0.50%0.50%6 of 9+22.8%
Infrastructure1841%98%0.60%0.60%0 of 14+6.6%
Biotech1031%99%0.40%0.40%8 of 8+40.2%
Memory and storage530%97%0.70%0.80%0 of 0·
Cybersecurity728%99%0.50%0.50%7 of 7+39.4%
Cloud and software846%92%0.40%0.40%4 of 7+22.6%
Broad innovation and megatrends3150%89%0.50%0.60%15 of 28+19.3%
Electrification and the grid1251%97%0.60%0.60%3 of 8+9.3%
Internet and e-commerce1330%95%0.70%0.70%0 of 13−15.2%
Nuclear and uranium1017%100%0.70%0.70%0 of 8−21.3%
Reshoring and manufacturing1036%97%0.60%0.70%5 of 7+21.9%
Copper610%100%0.60%0.60%6 of 6+39.4%
Silver miners42%100%0.50%0.50%3 of 4+26.9%
Robotics and automation923%93%0.70%0.70%3 of 6+10.2%
Miners and metals612%100%0.60%0.60%2 of 6+10.2%
Quantum computing436%84%0.40%0.50%1 of 2+19.9%
Clean energy1610%99%0.60%0.60%0 of 16+2.2%
Water636%100%0.50%0.50%0 of 6−3.8%
Digital infrastructure and data centers962%88%0.50%0.60%7 of 8+32.9%
Space1014%100%0.80%0.80%0 of 2+3.2%
Therapeutics and medical devices522%98%0.70%0.70%1 of 5+13.1%
Blockchain and crypto equities1420%98%0.60%0.60%0 of 13−30.1%
Rare earth and critical materials78%100%0.60%0.60%1 of 4+8.6%
Genomics and gene editing424%99%0.50%0.50%3 of 3+65.7%
Agriculture620%100%0.60%0.60%1 of 6+13.2%
Lithium and battery metals58%100%0.60%0.60%1 of 5+9.5%
Cannabis50%100%0.80%0.60%0 of 5−23.8%
Fintech and digital payments639%98%0.60%0.60%0 of 4−18.4%
AI infrastructure and chips1164%89%0.70%0.70%3 of 3+48.5%
Shipping, aviation and logistics634%99%0.60%0.60%3 of 4+43.5%
Energy security and critical technology585%95%0.50%0.60%1 of 4+14.8%
Electric vehicles and batteries820%98%0.50%0.50%0 of 6−6.1%
Energy transition and decarbonisation942%98%0.60%0.60%5 of 8+23.5%
Gaming, esports and betting812%100%0.60%0.60%0 of 7−15.8%
Travel and leisure334%99%0.60%0.60%0 of 2−6.2%
Metaverse and immersive tech446%80%0.60%0.80%0 of 4+9.3%
Timber and forestry216%100%0.60%0.60%0 of 2−2.3%
Stablecoins and tokenisation519%98%0.70%0.70%0 of 2−1.4%
Photonics and optics328%100%0.80%0.80%0 of 0·
Humanoid robots315%94%0.30%0.40%0 of 2−3.5%
Healthcare innovation and GLP-1834%98%0.60%0.60%4 of 8+14.8%
Millennial and Gen Z consumers166%84%0.50%0.60%0 of 1−11.1%
Longevity and aging255%96%0.40%0.40%0 of 1+6.7%
Coal10%100%0.80%0.80%0 of 1+7.8%
3D printing129%99%0.70%0.70%0 of 1+7.7%
Streaming and live entertainment420%99%0.80%0.80%0 of 2−19.4%
Pets131%99%0.50%0.50%0 of 1−11.4%
Cooling and thermal management156%98%1.00%1.00%0 of 1+11.6%
Nanotechnology119%93%0.60%0.60%1 of 1+52.6%
Beauty and personal care147%99%0.30%0.30%0 of 0·
AI labs and single company AI6··0.60%·0 of 0·

Same portfolio, two names: pairs more than half identical

PairWeight overlapThemeFee, firstFee, second
PDBA and EVMT100%Agriculture0.59%0.59%
IBBQ and IBB85%Biotech0.19%0.44%
AUAU and GDX83%Gold miners0.35%0.51%
SOXQ and SOXX82%Semiconductors0.19%0.33%
ORBX and MARS82%Space0.50%0.75%
SHOC and SMH78%Semiconductors0.40%0.35%
ORBX and WARP78%Space0.50%0.50%
GDX and GDMN77%Gold miners0.51%0.45%
FTXL and SOXX77%Semiconductors0.60%0.33%
SPAM and PSWD76%Cybersecurity0.35%0.20%
MARS and WARP75%Space0.75%0.50%
FIW and PHO75%Water0.50%0.59%
BUG and WCBR75%Cybersecurity0.50%0.45%
AUAU and GDMN75%Gold miners0.35%0.45%
SOXQ and SMH74%Semiconductors0.19%0.35%
Method

Holdings from each fund’s latest public SEC N-PORT filing (issuer daily files for ARK and First Trust); in-index weight and active share computed by ETFIQ against the IVV and QQQM books; fees from prospectus XBRL; returns from Tiingo end-of-day prices with distributions reinvested. Themes are ETFIQ’s editorial taxonomy. Medians across funds. Rebuilt every trading night.

Data file: thematic.json. ETFIQ is an independent publisher and makes no recommendations. Standards →

More research
What alternatives ETFs did when stocks fell→The state of buffer ETFs→What a coin costs in a brokerage account→Who paid, and where the cash came from→The stated multiple and what the holder got→How much of a theme was already the index→
Cite this page

ETFIQ Research, How much of a theme is already the index, data as of Oct 9, 2026. https://etfiq.com/research/2026-10-09/themes-index

Open data →

Free to use with attribution for data ETFIQ computes; issuer data stays under its owner's terms. The underlying files are at Open data.