What Is IGM? iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF

IGM is the iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF. It tracks the S&P North American Expanded Technology Sector Index, holding US and Canadian technology companies plus the tech-adjacent communication services and consumer names that a strict sector classification excludes. It launched in 2001 and holds roughly $11.4 billion as of October 2026.

Classification. VGT follows the GICS information technology sector, which files Alphabet and Meta under communication services, so VGT does not hold them. IGM's index deliberately reaches across those boundaries and does. If you want Alphabet and Meta inside your technology allocation rather than counted as media companies, that is the distinction. VGT is also considerably cheaper at 0.10% against IGM's 0.39%.

QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, which is defined by exchange listing rather than by sector, so it also holds large healthcare, consumer and industrial companies. IGM is a sector fund and holds technology and tech-adjacent names only. QQQ is cheaper at 0.20% and far larger. IGM is the more concentrated technology expression.

Its largest positions as of October 2026 are Apple at about 8.6%, Microsoft at 8.5%, NVIDIA at 8.3% and Broadcom at 6.9%, followed by Meta, Alphabet Class A, Micron, AMD, Alphabet Class C and Intel. Counting both Alphabet share classes, Alphabet is about 8.5% of the fund. The top ten are roughly 57% of assets, so it is meaningfully concentrated despite holding a broader roster underneath. Since July, Apple and Microsoft have moved back above NVIDIA at the top, and Micron has slipped from fifth to seventh.

0.39% a year as of October 2026. That is high relative to the large technology sector funds, where VGT charges 0.10% and XLK 0.09%. On a $10,000 position the difference against VGT is roughly $29 a year, which compounds. The expanded classification is what you are paying the premium for.

A small one, yielding about 0.13% as of October 2026. Technology companies generally retain earnings to reinvest rather than distribute them, so a technology fund's yield is minimal by construction. IGM is held for price return, not income.

It gives you concentrated exposure to the largest AI beneficiaries, since NVIDIA, Broadcom, Microsoft, Micron and AMD are all top holdings. It is not an AI fund, though: it also holds software, consumer technology and legacy names whose revenue has little to do with AI capex. A narrower AI or semiconductor fund expresses that thesis more directly. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Almost certainly. Its largest positions are also the largest weights in the S&P 500, so a broad index fund such as VOO already holds them heavily. Adding IGM concentrates that further rather than diversifying it. Check what you own through existing funds before adding a technology sector fund on top.

Concentration is the main one: the top ten holdings are well over half the fund, so a handful of companies drive returns. Beyond that, sector risk since everything moves together on the same technology cycle, valuation risk because the sector often trades at high multiples, and a higher expense ratio than comparable funds. It also tends to swing harder than the market: Yahoo Finance puts its three-year beta at 1.52. Past performance does not indicate future results.

As of the October 16, 2026 close of $161.26, IGM's price was up about 24.7% year to date and 26.4% over the past year, though it had slipped about 1.7% over the prior month. Yahoo Finance lists its three-year average annual return at 36.67% and its five-year average at 19.25%. Those figures reflect a strong run for the largest technology and semiconductor names and are not a guide to what comes next. Past performance does not indicate future results.

Put a few fields side by side: the expense ratio (fees compound over decades), the index or strategy it tracks, the top holdings and how much they overlap with what you already own, the dividend yield, and the AUM, liquidity, and bid-ask spread that affect trading costs. For index funds, tracking error (how closely it follows its index) and tax efficiency matter too. IGM's figures are above; the full method is in Walnut's guide on how to compare ETFs.