3 Overlooked Tech ETFs That Are Quietly Killing It This Year

Key Points

• With dozens of tech ETFs on the market, investors must look closely to distinguish options based on fees, strategy, performance, and other metrics.
• Three easily-overlooked funds focus on momentum tech names, software development, and nanotechnology, respectively.
• PTF, IGPT, and TINY have each returned approximately 70% year-to-date.

As the number of tech exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continues to rise along with investor demand for the sector, it can become more challenging for investors to distinguish among offerings. Looking at details—unique strategies, portfolio construction, costs, liquidity, and so on—can make all the difference for investors seeking to maximize their returns while the sector is hot.

Fortunately, there are many good options in the tech ETF space, including several funds that are potentially overlooked (as evidenced by their modest asset bases and trading volumes) but which have a strong performance record so far in 2026.

A Momentum Tech Fund With Outsized Returns

First up is the Invesco Dorsey Wright Technology Momentum ETF NASDAQ: PTF, a passively managed fund tracking an index of domestic tech stocks. As a broad-based fund, PTF tends to skew toward larger names, and about two-thirds of the fund's portfolio is large-cap (or bigger) companies. Defining the basket, however, is momentum—all of the companies in PTF's portfolio have relative strength compared to the performance of the other equities in the same space.

Because the tech sector routinely offers ample room for growth, PTF can be a good buy-and-hold option for investors looking to lean into tech. The fund will rebalance to match the areas within the sector that are richest for growth possibilities. For the moment, one of those areas is memory and data storage—some of the positions with the highest allocations include companies like Sandisk Corp. NASDAQ: SNDK and Western Digital Corp. NASDAQ: WDC. These firms have benefited enormously from the increased prices of their goods due to a global memory shortage in recent quarters.

PTF is fairly narrow in scope, with only about 40 holdings. The fund also comes with a moderately high price tag, given that its annual fee is 0.60%. With under $1 billion in assets and a fairly modest trading volume, the most active traders may want to keep an eye on liquidity. However, where PTF really stands out is in performance—this ETF has returned nearly 72% year-to-date (YTD).

Despite Details Similar to PTF, IGPT Offers a Unique View of Tech

Another fund from Invesco, the AI and Next Gen Software ETF NYSEARCA: IGPT provides a window into the tech sector that is substantially different from PTF above. First, IGPT tracks an index of firms with significant interest in software development. Notably, the portfolio is divided between semiconductor companies, interactive media and services names, hardware, storage, and peripherals, and several other categories.

More than 100 different stocks make up IGPT's basket, though a handful of big tech names like AMD NASDAQ: AMD and NVIDIA Corp. NASDAQ: NVDA exert a disproportionate influence given their allocations of 8% or so each. Importantly, IGPT is not limited to just domestic names, either, although U.S. companies do make up the bulk of the portfolio at more than 75%.

Where IGPT nearly intersects with PTF is in some of the details for investors to keep in mind. The fund's expense ratio of 0.58% is only marginally lower than PTF's, for instance, while its asset base and trading volume are not too far off from PTF's as well. Likewise, investors will be happy to see that the two ETFs have similar performance this year, also, with IGPT returning about 69% YTD.

A Fittingly-Named Tiny Fund to Address the Easily Missed Nanotechnology Niche

The ProShares Nanotechnology ETF NYSEARCA: TINY is, fittingly, a microscopic fund from an asset base perspective. The fund has under $40 million in managed assets and a similarly minuscule trading volume. This alone may be enough to dissuade some investors because of the liquidity risks it poses. However, looking beyond that concern, investors can find a unique theme that focuses on one of the fastest-growing but often overlooked corners of the tech space: nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is an increasingly important aspect of daily life, whether consumers realize it or not, and the roughly 30 positions in TINY's portfolio are all global stocks involved in bringing this tech to market. Investors are unlikely to find many mega-cap tech behemoths here, and indeed may not encounter many of the positions in TINY's basket in most other tech ETFs at all. Only half of the positions are large-cap names, with many of the others representing substantially smaller up-and-coming companies.

Of course, this also carries a significant degree of risk, making TINY appropriate only for investors willing to accept these trade-offs. Those who have—and who have been willing to pay the 0.58% annual fee attached to the ETF—have been nicely rewarded with nearly 72% returns YTD, however.