Can anyone tell me the difference between Wall Street (cash) and the Dow Futures)

[doffffy]

I am a new trader and I have been observing that the point difference between Wall street (cash) and the Dow Jones futures listed elsewhere differs between 100 to 200 points.

Would anyone knows why?

Thank you

[HeOfMuchDisgrunt]

The  "cash" market is artificially calculated by IG as a weighted combination of the nearest two futures contracts. As the nearer contract gets closer to expiry it should get closer to the "cash" price, however there will be a daily adjustment to your account to reflect the effect of the later contract.  A futures contract will be greater in price than the cash market (on the same basket) to reflect the fact that otherwise you could buy the future on margin and invest the remaining cash to earn free money as interest (although note that markets for actual delivery of a commodity, such as oil, have supply factors influencing the price so things are not as simple as when the commodity is the same underlying basket - look up "contango" and "backwardation" for more info).

If you go long cash, representing buying a basket of shares, then short the later month future you would find at the expiry of the future the gain you make from the shrinking time-premium built into the futures price versus the cash price will be more or less off-set by the total of all the daily adjustments to your account (which are separate from and different to any overnight interest charges).

That's my understanding anyway

Hope that helps.

[Kodiak]

Probably have something to do with dividends?