The OMX Index Family, the benchmarks of the Nordic markets, have experienced a strong start to 2015 on the back of a collapsing Krona. The SEK has weakened by over 10% year to date as the European continent, not just the Euro, have been on the wrong side of the US Dollar. Though that currency swing has richly rewarded investors in the local European equity markets with strong outperformance over the US market.

The Nasdaq Composite had a historic month in March as it crossed the 5000 threshold for the second time ever and first time since March 2000. The difference between 5,000 in March 2000 versus 5,000 in March 2015 has been widely dissected by the financial press but it bears pointing out again the massive shift the stocks listed on Nasdaq have undertaken in their fundamental strength while also driving significant innovation to the world through technology, health care and consumer goods.

The Nasdaq Q-50, the index comprised of the 50 companies that are next eligible to be members of the Nasdaq-100, has had strong returns of late. Q-50 has had one of the strongest Q1s which was largely driven by its high exposures to biotech which drove over 45% of the gain of the quarter. Biotech’s impressive gains continued into 2015 fueled by mid-cap names such as Biomarin Pharma and United Therapeutics.

The Nasdaq Solar Index is March's top performer at 9.5% and the PHLX Gold/Silver Sector Index is the worst performer of March at -14.9%. Get a quick overview of Nasdaq Index performance data for our top 50 most watched indexes here.