Retired Before Nvidia Made Everyone Rich? These 3 ETFs Put the Next Wave in Your IRA Without Betting the Nest Egg

You watched NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) go parabolic from the sidelines. The nest egg was already built, the paycheck was gone, and the last thing your advisor wanted to hear was “let’s put 20% into a single chip stock.” That’s fair. But sitting entirely in bonds and dividend blue chips while the AI buildout reshapes the S&P 500 carries its own cost. Three ETFs can help you dial in measured exposure without turning your IRA into a lottery ticket: the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH), the Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (NASDAQ:QQQM), and the Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (NASDAQ:AIQ). Each targets the theme from a different angle, and each carries a very different risk profile you need to respect at this stage of life.

SMH: The Concentrated Chip Bet

SMH tracks the MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index and is the most aggressive of the three. The fund holds approximately $74.6 billion in net assets, concentrating that capital in a tight roster of chipmakers and equipment suppliers. NVIDIA alone accounts for roughly 22.9% of the fund, with Taiwan Semiconductor close behind at about 9.7% and Broadcom at approximately 6.2%. Applied Materials, Micron, AMD, KLA, Lam Research, Intel, and ASML round out the remaining top-ten positions, which together represent more than 70% of assets.

The performance story since publication has grown even more striking. SMH is up 68.5% year to date through late September 2026, far ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch. Zoom out a decade and the fund’s cumulative gain dwarfs the broader market by a wide margin. That said, the same concentration that drives those numbers cut sharply in 2022, when the fund’s share price dropped roughly a third. For a retiree, SMH belongs in the satellite sleeve of a portfolio rather than as a core holding.

QQQM: The Cheaper Way to Own the Nasdaq-100

QQQM is Invesco’s buy-and-hold sibling to QQQ. Same Nasdaq-100 index, same top holdings, but a lower expense ratio of 0.15% built for long-term investors rather than active traders. You get Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and Tesla in one package, plus roughly 95 other names spanning software, biotech, and consumer tech. The fund has grown to approximately $104 billion in assets, a sign of how much retail money has moved toward passive Nasdaq exposure.

Returns are still tech-heavy but far tamer than a pure chip play. QQQM is up approximately 21.6% year to date and about 26.4% over the past year, with an average annual return since inception of roughly 17.5%. For a retiree, QQQM is the “core” way to own the AI theme: you participate in the mega-caps that actually monetize AI, without single-stock risk and without paying a premium for a narrow index.

AIQ: The Broader AI Basket With Global Reach

AIQ tracks the Indxx Artificial Intelligence & Big Data Index and is the most thematically pure of the three. The fund holds approximately $10.5 billion in assets across roughly 89 positions, reaching beyond U.S. borders in a way SMH and QQQM do not. The top position is Korean memory maker SK Hynix, followed by Micron, AMD, and Samsung Electronics. You also get Alibaba, Tencent, SAP, Siemens, and small speculative slices of C3.ai, SoundHound, Pony AI, and Quantum Computing.

Performance has been strong. AIQ is up roughly 29.9% year to date and about 36.6% over the past year. The trade-off is straightforward: AIQ functions more as a general tech-and-AI basket than a pure-play semiconductor fund, and the foreign holdings layer in currency and geopolitical risk on top of tech volatility. Investors who want AI exposure with less U.S. concentration will find that feature useful; those who want a tighter mandate should look elsewhere.

Trade-Offs Retirees Should Weigh Before Buying In

Nobody can promise the AI buildout keeps compounding at these rates. Semiconductors are cyclical, valuations are stretched after a run like this, and all three funds can give back gains quickly in a risk-off environment. If you are already drawing from your portfolio, sizing matters enormously. A common framework is capping thematic tech at 10% to 15% of the portfolio combined, with QQQM doing most of the heavy lifting and SMH plus AIQ as smaller accelerators. A rough patch in the early years of withdrawals hurts far more than one later on, which is the whole subject of our free guide on defending the early retirement years. Sized thoughtfully, an ugly quarter dents the account without derailing the retirement plan you already spent decades building.

Editor’s note: This update refreshes SMH’s net assets to $74.6 billion and its year-to-date return to 68.5%, corrects NVIDIA’s fund weight to approximately 22.9%, and updates QQQM’s YTD return to roughly 21.6% and AIQ’s AUM to approximately $10.5 billion, all as of late September 2026.

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