I have been trading CSCO with QQQ combination. I found CSCO is very identical with Nasdaq market as QQQ What is your strategy trading CSCO & QQQ? How did your strategy turn out?
I have found INTC to be closer to QQQ than CSCO. Compare the two from this last week and you'll see what I mean. Regarding a strategy for QQQ, I like to watch the Nasdaq TICK and TRIN, then go long or short appropriately, and stay in the position for several hours. They are pretty good at indicating the underlying direction of the Nasdaq market. For Longs, I look for the TICK to be positive and TRIN to be .9 or lower. For Shorts, I'm looking for a negative TICK and TRIN 1.1 or higher. And its good to wait until around 10:30 or 11:00 once the market settles down some.
The top 4 components of the Nasdaq 100 are: Microscoft: 9.68% Intel: 5.06% Qualcomm: 4.67% Cisco: 4.33% Combined, the four of them comprise nearly 25% of the entire index, so both singly and together they are generally good proxies for the index as a whole.