It's in with the old names and out with the new tech stocks for the Nasdaq 100, as consumer brands take over the indexing space of their fallen, over-the-counter tech brethren.

Yes, it's mid-December again. That means the Nasdaq reconfigures its 100 stock index. Because the list consists of select choices among the 150 largest Nasdaq-listed companies, the annual rite of adjustment tends to favor stocks and industries that have outperformed the market over the past year.

Who's moving in? Fifteen new stocks this year, including Expeditors International of Washington(Nasdaq: EXPD), Ross Stores(Nasdaq: ROST), DENTSPLY(Nasdaq: XRAY), Lamar Advertising(Nasdaq: LAMR), Whole Foods Market(Nasdaq: WFMI), First Health Group(Nasdaq: FHCC), PETsMART(Nasdaq: PETM), Pixar(Nasdaq: PIXR), Fastenal(Nasdaq: FAST), American Power Conversion(Nasdaq: APCC), C.H. Robinson(Nasdaq: CHRW), Patterson-UTI Energy(Nasdaq: PTEN), Gentex(Nasdaq: GNTX), Henry Schein(Nasdaq: HSIC), and Ryanair Holdings(Nasdaq: RYAAY).

While it's not the oft-quoted Nasdaq Composite, the Nasdaq 100 is a meaty collection of equities. Nearly two dozen index funds mirror the holdings and its own Nasdaq 100 Index Tracking Stock(NYSE: QQQ), with $18 billion in assets. While it's not the more widely imitated S&P 500 Index, the impact of being added tends to lift the latest additions higher. With the moves set to go into effect by the end of the week, there's a built-in bias, as money managers buy into the new companies to stay current with the new composition.

Of course, the Nasdaq isn't being renamed the Index 115 so it has to make room for the new stocks. While one of the dearly departing, Rational Software(Nasdaq: RATL), was already set to bow out after IBM's(NYSE: IBM) buyout bid, the other 14 aren't so lucky. The mostly picked-over tech stocks include: Abgenix(Nasdaq: ABGX), Andrx(Nasdaq: ADRX), Applied Micro Circuits(Nasdaq: AMCC), Atmel(Nasdaq: ATML), Charter Communications(Nasdaq: CHTR), Conexant(Nasdaq: CNXT), Cytyc(Nasdaq: CYTC), Integrated Device Technology(Nasdaq: IDTI), ImClone Systems(Nasdaq: IMCL), i2 Technologies (Nasdaq: ITWO), Protein Design Labs(Nasdaq: PDLI), PMC-Sierra(Nasdaq: PMCS), Sepracor(Nasdaq: SEPR), and Vitesse(Nasdaq: VTSS).

Yes, between dental supplies and a dog-chew retailer, the new list has some bite.