CNDX tracks the Nasdaq 100; VUAA tracks the S&P 500. For almost everyone, VUAA is the core and CNDX is a satellite tilt — the Nasdaq 100 is mostly the same megacaps you already own through the S&P 500, just more of them and minus the rest of the market.
What they share
Both are Irish-domiciled UCITS ETFs that fully replicate their index — VUAA from Vanguard, CNDX from iShares — holding every constituent at index weights rather than a sample. Both accumulate dividends, so there's nothing to reinvest or declare. And both hold US stocks priced in dollars, so your real currency exposure is effectively 100% USD either way: VUAA's EUR listing and CNDX's USD listing are share-class cosmetics, not a diversification difference. Operationally they're the same animal.
Where they differ
The headline is fees. VUAA charges 0.07%; CNDX charges 0.30% — more than four times as much. On a €50k position that's €35 a year versus €150, a €115 gap that compounds. Unlike the VUAA-vs-VWCE call, where the fee difference is close to a rounding error, here it's real money and it points one way: the broader fund is also the cheaper one. (iShares publishes the full cost breakdown on the CNDX factsheet.)
But fees aren't the reason to pick one. The S&P 500 is 500 US large-caps spread across all eleven sectors — heavy on tech, yes, but also financials, healthcare, energy, and industrials. The Nasdaq 100 is the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq. Two things fall out of that definition: it holds a fifth as many stocks, and it owns zero banks or insurers. What's left is overwhelmingly technology and consumer-tech. CNDX is a concentrated bet that megacap tech keeps outrunning the broad US market; VUAA is the broad US market.
The overlap at the very top is almost total. NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon — the same names anchor both funds, because the S&P 500's largest companies are mostly Nasdaq-listed tech. The difference is dose:
| Ticker | Name | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | NVIDIA Corp | 7.55% |
| AAPL | Apple Inc | 6.64% |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corp | 4.90% |
| AMZN | Amazon.com Inc | 3.62% |
| GOOGL | Alphabet Inc Class A | 2.98% |
| Ticker | Name | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | NVIDIA Corp | 8.69% |
| AAPL | Apple Inc | 7.64% |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corp | 5.63% |
| AMZN | Amazon.com Inc | 4.58% |
| TSLA | Tesla Inc | 3.80% |
VUAA's top five come to 25.7% of the basket; CNDX's top five are 30.3%. Same companies, heavier weights, because CNDX has 400 fewer stocks diluting each position. You're not buying different things — you're buying more of the same things and less of everything else.
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Who each one is for
Buy VUAA as your US core. It's cheaper, broader, and the textbook one-fund US large-cap holding — if you want a single S&P 500 tracker and never want to think about it again, this is it. (If you're actually weighing US-only against global, read VUAA vs VWCE first — that's the bigger decision.)
Buy CNDX only as a satellite, and only if you hold a specific conviction that megacap tech and growth keep beating the rest of the market. You're paying 0.30% for higher concentration and no financials — a deliberate tilt, not a foundation. And stacking CNDX on top of a VUAA core mostly doubles down on names you already own, so size it like the bet it is, not like a second core.
There's no version of this where CNDX replaces VUAA as your only fund. One is the market; the other is a slice of it you've decided to overweight. Pick the core first, then decide whether the tilt is worth 0.30%.