Tough one. On one hand, SPY (the S&P 500) is much more diversified than QQQ (Nasdaq 100), with 5x as many stocks, broader sector representation & not nearly as top-weighted with the largest components. Add to that the fact that SPY is largely made up of defensive sectors & stocks such as utilities & consumer staples as well as a larger percentage of high-yielding dividend stocks (which tend to fall less during a bear market due to the fact they pay dividends).
QQQ is heavily weighted towards high-growth tech stocks, biotechs & other high-growth companies, many of which pay little to no dividends. The one advantage that a lot of the high-flying, cash-rich tech companies have over many of the stocks in the S&P 500 is that they tend to have a much lower debt load to service, which can & most likely will hurt many of the stocks in the S&P 500 if rates continue to rise, be it the FOMC raising rates or due to jitters throughout the financial system caused by a sharp move lower in stocks, which would likely raise the borrow costs of companies due to credit spreads widening with many companies credit ratings being downgraded in expectation of a slowing economy (which tends to go hand in hand with stock market corrections & especially bear markets.
Long answer & my first response would normally be that a QQQ short would have more downside potential vs. SPY during the next bear market due to the higher beta of the tech-heavy holdings & I do lean that way (QQQ to outperform SPY to the downside during the next correction and/or bear market) but if you look at the 2007-2009 bear market, QQQ fell about 54.5% while SPY fell about 57.5%. I do believe, however, that the outperformance to the downside during that bear market was largely due to the extreme losses in the banking/financial sector, which made up fairly significant weighting in the SPX back then & I don’t think that the next bear market will see a near-collapse of the banking sector as was the case in the 2007-2009 bear market.

Thanks for pointing that out, nice catch! I just watched that part of the video. I had zoomed in & scrolled back on that monthly chart to end around early 2008 while covering the SPY monthly chart just before moving on to QQQ. I then refreshed the chart by re-typing in the symbol (QQQ) at the 30:17 mark which I thought had reset the chart & cleared out the zoom to return to right-edge to the current candle.
Although certainly an oversight on my part, the net effect is essentially the same as we are only on the 2nd day of the May monthly candlestick with plenty of time before than candle is finalized, especially since the PPO is currently pointed lower & poised to make a bearish crossover on any downside or even just sideways trading between now & the end of the month. Here’s a screenshot of the current monthly chart of QQQ showing what appears to be a likely pending bearish cross on the PPO with the PPO histogram barely above zero as of today’s close.
Thanks again for pointing that out & let’s see how SPY & QQQ close this month as sometimes the PPO lines appear to be crossing but bounce just as the touch, keeping the current trend intact.

Just to think the markets were helped immensely in not being down more by the 4%+ of the 800 lb gorilla, AAPL. Without that, we might be right at the critical trendlines.

Randy,, if this thing goes, I’m thinking an inverse leveraged ETF to short. Do you think it better to short the SPY or the Q’s?