I'd wager that most ASX investors who describe themselves as 'growth investors' wouldn't do much index fund investing.
After all, the whole point of growth investing is finding those high-flying shares that have the potential to outperform the broader market over time. It's pretty hard to perform in the market when you are investing in the market itself.
As such, your typical growth investor tends to bet big on individual stocks, leaving index investing to others.
That might have worked for certain periods of the past. But I think it is getting more and more difficult to pull off going forward. So should ASX growth investors rethink index investing in 2026? I think so.
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Watering flowers, removing weeds
The world is changing at a rate rarely seen before. It was only a few years ago when artificial intelligence (AI) still seemed a pipedream. Today, we are acutely aware of this technology's disruptive potential. Whilst this has the potential to bring many benefits, investors have also been concerned that AI may make the software products and services of many companies redundant. The innovation required for growth stocks to stay at the cutting edge of technology has arguably never been higher.
If an investor has the expertise to navigate these changes, and continue to attempt to pick winners, then they should keep at it. But I have decided that the rate of change and disruption that is now taking place has raised the bar beyond my comfort level. That's why I think growth investors may want to consider changing tack into index investing.
The beauty of index investing is that the index's automatic rebalancing mechanisms add to winners and weed out losers over time. Sure, you might not get that 100-bagger that becomes half of your portfolio thanks to your big, early bet. But you are guaranteed that the most successful companies on an index will swell to become your largest investments over time, without the risk of a complete wipeout of capital.
When most people think of index investing, they assume we mean buying shares in broad-market indexes like the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), or the US-based S&P 500.
To be fair, an index fund that tracks the ASX 200 Index is indeed quite unsuitable for growth investors. That's given our market's heavy weighting towards decades-old bank and mining stocks.
The best index funds for growth investors
But investors can always opt for a growth-tilted index, such as the S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX). The BetaShares S&P/ASX Australian Technology ETF (ASX: ATEC) tracks this index, which only holds the largest technology stocks on the ASX. Some of its current holdings include Xero Ltd (ASX: XRO), NextDC Ltd (ASX: NXT) and WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC).
An S&P 500 index fund like the iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV) is a different kettle of fish. The S&P 500 is dominated by some of the most dominant and innovative growth stocks the world has ever seen. Among IVV's top holdings, one will find NVIDIA, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple. All stocks that have found themselves in many successful growth investors' portfolios in the past.
If that's not 'growthy' enough, the BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF (ASX: NDQ) is a more intense choice. This index fund only holds stocks that are listed on the NASDAQ exchange. These tend to be newer, more dynamic companies. NDQ holds the US stocks listed above, but also prominently features names like Adobe, Intel, AMD, Netflix, and Palantir Technologies.
In this era of intense disruptive forces on our technology markets, I think some ASX growth investors should consider leaving picking the winners to the index funds.
