Five years ago, owning the Nasdaq 100 was the entire strategy and a dividend fund was what you settled for when you ran out of conviction. Not anymore. In July, US-listed technology ETFs pulled in a record amount of money in the same month the average technology fund fell about 10%, and the dividend fund most Indian investors have never opened is beating the Nasdaq 100 by roughly eight percentage points this year. That's why we built Winvesta Crisps, to decode what's actually moving the funds you own, in plain language, before the consensus catches up. 60,000+ investors from all over India are already in. What about you?
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On 28 August, at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said the 12-month change in the PCE price index stands at 3.7% and the six-month change at 4.1%. He described financial conditions as "not broadly restrictive" and set the bar plainly: the Fed must be confident inflation is moving to target clearly and at sufficient speed, "otherwise, we have work to do." Markets read that as what it was. Rate cuts are off the table and a hike is live, with futures pricing meaningful odds of an increase at the September meeting.
Now hold that against what investors actually did in July. US-listed ETFs took in about $189 billion, per State Street's monthly flows report, with technology funds alone taking a record near $19 billion. In the same month, the average technology sector and industry ETF fell roughly 10% and close to 90% of tech-classified funds finished negative. Money went in hardest exactly where prices went down. State Street's research head described it as investors treating the pullback as a buying opportunity rather than a warning.
Most investors see that as courage. The flows say something less flattering, which is that a lot of people bought a discount rate story with a momentum reflex.
🎯 Meet Sameer
Sameer is 34, works in product at a Pune software company, and has been investing in US markets from India since 2021. His portfolio is about ₹62 lakh. Roughly two thirds of it sits in a Nasdaq 100 fund, the rest in three technology names he bought individually because he already understood the businesses.
It has worked. That is the difficulty. Every correction he has held through has been rewarded within a quarter, so his instinct in July was the same instinct the flow data captured across the market. Tech fell, he added, and he felt sensible doing it.
His question this week is not whether the AI trade is real. It is narrower and harder. If the next Fed move is up rather than down, and if the fund he has never owned is quietly beating the fund he does own, is he holding a position or a habit?
📊 What the record flows actually say
Start with what Sameer owns. The Invesco QQQ Trust holds 100 companies, and three of them do most of the work: Nvidia at about 8.0%, Apple at about 7.5% and Microsoft at about 5.7%, so roughly 21% of the fund sits in three balance sheets. That is not a criticism of the fund. It is the fund's design, and it is the reason his returns have looked the way they have.
Set that against the two funds gathering the value money.
The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF screens for dividend reliability and balance-sheet quality, charges 0.06%, and after its March 2026 reconstitution carries an index yield near 3.6%, with healthcare around 18% and energy around 12%. It holds no Nvidia, no Microsoft, no Apple and no Alphabet. The Avantis US Large Cap Value ETF is actively managed, charges 0.15%, and combines value with a profitability screen. Per mid-August reporting, the dividend fund is up about 27% this year against roughly 19% for the Nasdaq 100, and the Avantis fund returned about 22% on NAV in the seven months to 31 July.