Am I correct to think that QQQQ is the spot price for the Nasdaq futures, ie. NQZ6? So does NQZ6 move because of QQQQ or vice versa? Which one drives the other? Thanks.
NQZ6 moves first. You can run the stats if you have tick data that is timestamped to the nearest second for both instruments. The correlation is nearly one as one might expect. Typically the futures move and exacting hedges are carried out on the cubes. Using the actual stock of the index is also used to take additional advantage of the spot lag...
Probably there are also some interest related effects in NQZ6 which do not occur in QQQQ. Does anyone know if QQQQ pays dividends? And, if so, are the costs of maintaining QQQQ subtracted from the dividend?
QQQQ doesn't pay out dividends. Honestly I don't see why they would need a dividend? Pull up the 1 month volume of this chart and check out the patterns..
They are mostly the same. However, futures prices get reflected more quickly than the tape.. it's a mechanical difference which you likely cannot exploit.
Not true. QQQQ pays dividends. The last one was for $0.108 on Dec 17, 2010. The current dividend is due this month.
Why can't you exploit this mechanical difference? I don't get this can you please explain a little bit more in detail of what you mean?