Nasdaq or S&P 500 - which moves further?

Both indexes read the same headline at the same moment. They do not travel the same distance afterwards. This is the median half-hour swing for each, release by release.

release	Nasdaq 100	S&P 500	ratio	which moves further?
PPI	0.44%	0.30%	1.45x	Nasdaq, clearly
Core PCE	0.39%	0.28%	1.42x	Nasdaq, clearly
JOLTS	0.45%	0.32%	1.41x	Nasdaq, clearly
GDP	0.27%	0.19%	1.41x	Nasdaq, clearly
Retail sales	0.26%	0.19%	1.41x	Nasdaq, clearly
Payrolls	0.67%	0.49%	1.37x	Nasdaq, clearly
CPI	0.71%	0.52%	1.36x	Nasdaq, clearly
FOMC	0.50%	0.42%	1.20x	Nasdaq

The Nasdaq moved further after every release measured here, by between 1.20 and 1.45 times. That is what a heavier weighting in rate-sensitive technology looks like in a half hour, and it is the reason every other page on this site is measured on the Nasdaq: it is where the reaction is easiest to see.

Medium-impact releases

The smaller reports, measured the same way and ranked among themselves: durable goods, housing starts, new home sales, the trade balance, import prices and productivity. Releases that printed in the same minute as another report here are left out of these figures too.

release	Nasdaq 100	S&P 500	ratio	which moves further?
Productivity	0.30%	0.19%	1.56x	Nasdaq, clearly
New home sales	0.41%	0.27%	1.54x	Nasdaq, clearly
Import prices	0.24%	0.16%	1.52x	Nasdaq, clearly
Durable goods	0.22%	0.16%	1.43x	Nasdaq, clearly
Trade balance	0.20%	0.15%	1.32x	Nasdaq
Housing starts	0.23%	0.18%	1.27x	Nasdaq

The same minute, two indexes

Every release on this site is measured on both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500, from the same minute, over the same thirty-minute window, using the same definition of swing. Each index keeps its own record, so a release missing from one stays in the other and the counts can differ by one or two. This table puts the two medians side by side. The ratio is the Nasdaq median divided by the S&P median, so a ratio of 1.40 means the Nasdaq travelled forty percent further in the half hour after that release, on the typical occasion.

What stands out

The Nasdaq's median was larger for every release measured, and the ratio barely depends on which release it was. It runs from 1.20 to 1.45, a narrow band for eight releases that differ by a factor of two or more in how much they move. That narrowness is the finding. It says the extra travel is not about the report; it is about the index. The Nasdaq 100 is heavier in the large technology names whose valuations move most when the rate path moves, and a rate-sensitive index reacts to a rate-relevant number by a fairly constant margin whatever the number is called.

FOMC is the row with the smallest gap at 1.20, which is at least consistent with that reading. An FOMC decision is the one release that speaks to the whole market at once rather than to the rate-sensitive part of it, so the two indexes have the least reason to disagree.

Reading the Nasdaq numbers if you trade the S&P

Every other page on this site is measured on the Nasdaq, because the reaction is easiest to see there. If you trade ES rather than NQ, the row's ratio is the conversion. A 0.71% CPI median on the Nasdaq reads as 0.52% on the S&P, and the same discount applies, roughly, to the first minute and the two-hour drift, which are not measured separately for the S&P here. Roughly is the word. The ratio is a ratio of medians, not the median of the day-by-day ratio, and on any given day the two indexes can diverge by more than that.

What it cannot tell you

Which index to trade. More travel is more opportunity and more cost in the same number, and the table takes no view. Both series are index CFDs rather than the CME contracts, so the point values and the futures basis are not in these figures. The S&P record is one or two releases shorter than the Nasdaq record on some rows, which is why the S&P counts on the release pages are not always identical to the Nasdaq ones.

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Releases: Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (Core PCE) Consumer Price Index (CPI) Durable Goods Orders Fed Rate Decision (FOMC) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Housing Starts and Building Permits Import and Export Prices Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) New Home Sales Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) Producer Price Index (PPI) Productivity and Unit Labor Costs Retail Sales Trade Balance (International Trade)