The headline number for the Invesco Large Cap Growth ETF (NASDAQ:PWB) this year stands at roughly 23% year to date, pulled at the close on Tuesday, well short of the 28% figure circulating in screenshots, with the fund moving from $127.11 on December 31, 2025 to $155.78 on June 9, 2026. That is still a fund lapping the broad market by a wide margin. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is up roughly 8% over the same window, and the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) is at roughly 15%. So PWB has roughly tripled the S&P 500 and meaningfully outpaced the Nasdaq 100 in a little over five months. The story is real, even if the 28% figure overstates it.
If you put $10,000 into PWB on the last trading day of 2025, you have ~$12,256 sitting in the account this morning. The same amount in SPY is at ~$10,808. Stretch the window out a year and the spread gets wider, with PWB up 39.1% over the trailing twelve months against roughly 23% for SPY. This is a persistent factor tilt that has paid off the entire way up the AI cycle.
What is actually doing the work
PWB markets itself as a dynamic large-cap growth ETF, which in practice means a quant-screened slice of the biggest US growth names rebalanced to favor companies with strong earnings momentum and price strength. In 2026 that screen has been pointing at the same place the rest of the market is pointing, which is the handful of mega-caps tied to AI infrastructure and the platforms that monetize it. The Goldman Sachs 2026 outlook frames the setup cleanly, arguing that large-cap outperformance is being sustained by companies with high gross margins, fortress balance sheets, and durable end markets, with the AI capex boom doing much of the heavy lifting on top of a softer underlying economy. That is a tailwind aimed almost directly at PWB’s screen.
JPMorgan’s 2026 outlook adds the earnings detail that makes the rotation easier to understand. S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 11% in 2025 and another 13% in 2026, with Magnificent 7 earnings growth running near 20% versus 11% for the rest of the index, accounting for 64% of overall profit growth. JPMorgan also notes that 2026 Mag 7 earnings estimates have been revised up by 3.4% since the start of the year, versus a 1.2% revision lower for the S&P 493. When the earnings river is flowing one direction that hard, a fund whose methodology mechanically rewards earnings strength is going to keep buying the same names. PWB is doing exactly that.
The cleanest way to think about this year’s 22.56% is as a factor trade. Growth beat blend, mega-cap beat the average stock, and a screen that overweights earnings momentum sat directly on top of both. The structure is plain-vanilla equity exposure, with no leverage, covered calls, or derivatives. The fund is up because the names it holds are the same names dragging the cap-weighted index higher, only without the drag from the financials, energy, and consumer staples that dilute the S&P 500.
Where the setup gets fragile
The mechanism that produced the run is also the mechanism that gives it back when the regime turns. Look at the last week. PWB fell roughly 5% against a 3% drop in SPY, and QQQ shed roughly 5%. When the AI complex sneezes, the funds tilted into it cough harder. BlackRock’s 2026 macro note flags this exact dynamic, describing the late-2025 backdrop as a relatively boring, low-volatility rally with signs of market complacency and a fragile equilibrium. The translation is that the path of least resistance has been up, but the cushion underneath is thin.
Two leading indicators are worth watching if you own this fund or are thinking about it. The first is the spread between Magnificent 7 earnings revisions and the rest of the index. As long as the Mag 7 number keeps getting revised up and the S&P 493 number keeps getting revised down, PWB’s screen will keep concentrating into the winners and the relative performance gap will keep widening. The day those revisions converge is the day the trade gets harder. The second is AI capex itself, which Goldman identifies as the load-bearing wall of the entire equity story. A marked reversal and broad unwind of AI-related investments could be the precursor to a hard landing, and PWB’s holdings sit at the center of that capex cycle on both the demand and supply sides.
What the year-to-date run is telling you
PWB has done what it was built to do in a year that was built for it. Growth beat value, mega-caps beat the average, and earnings momentum beat everything. The fund’s roughly 420% ten-year return against SPY’s roughly 251% tells you this is a durable factor exposure over long horizons, not a one-year accident. The real question is what you are paying for large-cap growth now, and whether the AI capex cycle that has carried it can absorb another year of revisions before something has to give. The answer most likely lives in the next two earnings seasons. Until then, the fund is doing exactly what its name says, and the S&P 500 is the slower benchmark in the rearview mirror.
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