Diversified? These 10 Nasdaq Large Caps Move in Lockstep with the Market

Data as of June 20, 2025 · Universe: up to 6,809 Nasdaq-listed tickers

 

Holding several big-name stocks feels like diversification. But if they rise and fall on the same days, you've added tickers, not protection.

 

For each of 59 Nasdaq large caps, we computed daily-return correlations against every other Nasdaq ticker and measured the share of pairs in the weak-correlation band (-0.3 to +0.3). The lower the share, the more the stock moves with the market as a whole.

 

The 10 large caps most in lockstep with the market

 

1. META (Meta Platforms) — 16.6%

2. VRTX (Vertex Pharmaceuticals) — 16.8%

3. ORLY (O'Reilly Automotive) — 17.3%

4. PANW (Palo Alto Networks) — 18.9%

5. CTAS (Cintas) — 19.0%

6. CDNS (Cadence Design Systems) — 19.1%

7. MAR (Marriott International) — 19.7%

8. AVGO (Broadcom) — 20.1%

9. SNPS (Synopsys) — 20.1%

10. KLAC (KLA Corporation) — 20.6%

 

For reference, Apple (AAPL) is 22.6%, while Sanofi (SNY), at the other end, is 92.7%.

 

How to read it

 

- It's not just Big Tech. Auto parts (ORLY), hotels (MAR) and uniforms (CTAS) look like different businesses, yet they move with the market too.

- Chip design and equipment names (CDNS, SNPS, KLAC, AVGO) cluster near the top. Holding all four is closer to holding one stock.

- If your portfolio is built from this list, compare it with large caps that move independently of the market.

 

Check your own tickers

 

Correlation distributions for 6,810 Nasdaq tickers and 184 sectors are free at correlworks.com/correlation. The underlying data for the 59 large caps is on Kaggle under CC BY 4.0: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/dataunion/correlworks-nasdaq-large-cap-correlation-sample

 

Statistical data as of June 2025. Not investment advice.