Walmart Inc. will be added to the Nasdaq 100 Index, as AstraZeneca Plc exits the index, Nasdaq Global Indexes announced in an official statement on Friday, 9 January.
The change will take effect before the market opens on 20 January, following the annual rebalancing following the annual rebalancing of the index. US markets will be closed on 19 January for a holiday.
Walmart’s addition to the Nasdaq 100 follows its decision last year to shift its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to Nasdaq, marking the largest exchange transfer on record.
The Nasdaq-100 Index is a globally recognised index that tracks the performance of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock market, spanning diverse range of industries and sectors.
Walmart’s market value
The US-based multinational retail corporation has seen its market value climb above $920 billion after it recorded strong sales growth and share gains. This growth was a result of consumers moving toward lower-priced essentials.
Walmart has also expanded its digital operations, with its e-commerce business in United States expected to report profitability this year, alongside growth in advertising, marketplace and membership revenue, Bloomberg reported.
The company, which is backed by major institutional investors such as Vanguard Group and BlackRock, has recently increased its use of artificial intelligence across its internal operations, which include scheduling and supply-chain management. It has also begun introducing AI-powered tools for shoppers in partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
AstraZeneca’s drop in revenue
AstraZeneca’s exit from the index marks a further step back from the stock’s pandemic-era peak, when the success of its Covid-19 vaccine helped push the the drugmaker into the Nasdaq 100 , Bloomberg said in a news report.
Since then, the company’s shares have underperformed as vaccine-related revenue faded and investors turned their focus toward obesity treatments being developed by its rivals such as Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly among others.
Apart from tracking the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, the Nasdaq 100 plays a major role in global investig. The index is used as a benchmark for hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of investment products. As of December 2025, more than $600 billion in assets tracked the index through exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to Nasdaq, including the widely followed $408 billion Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1.
The Nasdaq 100 had a notable gain of about 21% on a total-return basis in 2025, in comparison with S&P 500 which rose by 18% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average which gained 16% during the same period.
