BALQ iShares Nasdaq Premium Income Active ETF
Covered call on QQQ, paying monthly
Since its launch on Dec 3, 2025, BALQ paid 8.5% in cash and finished 5.2 points ahead of QQQ.
Key facts
What a holder got
Over the year to Sep 11, 2026, BALQ returned +20.3% with distributions reinvested and Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) returned +15.1%, so a holder came out ahead of it by 5.2 points. The lighter segment is the 8.5% that arrived as cash rather than as price.
Its ten largest equity positions
| Holding | Ticker | Weight | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | NVDA | 8.62% | |
| APPLE | AAPL | 7.54% | |
| MICROSOFT | MSFT | 6.81% | |
| MICRON TECHNOLOGY | MU | 4.95% | |
| AMAZON.COM INC | AMZN | 4.81% | |
| ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES | AMD | 3.94% | |
| ALPHABET CLASS A | GOOGL | 3.33% | |
| META PLATFORMS CLASS A | META | 3.26% | |
| BROADCOM INC | AVGO | 3.07% | |
| ALPHABET CLASS C | GOOG | 3.02% |
Period by period
| Window | Cash paid | Price | Total return | QQQ | Ahead or behind |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 months | 2.9% | −1.7% | +1.2% | −0.8% | +2.0 pts |
| 6 months | 6.4% | +16.9% | +23.7% | +20.7% | +3.0 pts |
| Since launch | 8.5% | +10.9% | +20.3% | +15.1% | +5.2 pts |
When BALQ pays
BALQ pays monthly. The last distribution was $0.4134 a share, which went ex on Sep 1, 2026 and was paid on Sep 4, 2026. The next has not been declared. On its own cadence of about 30 days the ex-date falls near Oct 1, 2026; that date is an ETFIQ projection, not the issuer’s.
| Ex-date | Pay date | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 | $0.4134 | ETFIQ projection from the fund’s own cadence |
Every distribution ETFIQ holds for BALQ (9, most recent first)
| Ex-date | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2026 | $0.4134 |
| Aug 3, 2026 | $0.5065 |
| Jul 1, 2026 | $0.6923 |
| Jun 1, 2026 | $0.4875 |
| May 1, 2026 | $0.3743 |
| Apr 1, 2026 | $0.5518 |
| Mar 2, 2026 | $0.43 |
| Feb 2, 2026 | $0.3508 |
| Dec 30, 2025 | $0.4686 |
Every income ETF going ex-dividend in the next fortnight
In plain words
Since it launched on Dec 3, 2025, BALQ has returned +20.3% with distributions reinvested, against +15.1% for Nasdaq-100 (QQQ), and has paid out 8.5% of its starting value in cash along the way. It pays monthly, and at its current price the latest distribution annualizes to 8.9%. No Rule 19a-1 notice has been published for this fund, so there is no issuer estimate of how much of its distributions was a return of capital.
| Strategy | covered call |
|---|---|
| Benchmark | Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) |
| Pays | monthly |
| Net assets (the issuer own daily fund list, as of Sep 11, 2026) | $29m |
| Latest payout, annualized (ETFIQ) | 8.9% |
| Expense ratio (485BPOS XBRL, Apr 29, 2026) | 0.35% |
| Cash paid, last 12 months, over today’s price (ETFIQ) | 7.7% |
| Launched | Dec 3, 2025 |
| Pays | monthly |
| Typical gap between ex-dates | 30 days |
| Typical wait from ex-date to payment | 4 days |
| Last paid, per share | $0.4134 ex Sep 1, 2026 |
| Sum of the last 9 distributions | $4.2753 |
Every figure is an ETFIQ calculation from exchange prices and cash distributions (Tiingo end-of-day), total return with distributions reinvested. Return of capital is the issuer’s estimate. How these figures are computed
Questions people ask
- How much has BALQ paid over the last year?
- Over the period from its launch on Dec 3, 2025 to Sep 11, 2026, BALQ paid 8.5% of its starting price in cash distributions, while the price rose 10.9%.
- Is BALQ ahead of QQQ?
- Over the period from its launch on Dec 3, 2025 to Sep 11, 2026, with every distribution reinvested, BALQ returned +20.3% against +15.1% for Nasdaq-100 (QQQ), so a holder was ahead of it by 5.2 points.
- How often does BALQ pay, and how much?
- BALQ pays monthly. The latest distribution annualizes to 8.9% at its price on Sep 11, 2026, which is not a promise; the next one can differ.
- When does BALQ next pay a distribution?
- BALQ pays monthly. The last distribution went ex on Sep 1, 2026 at $0.4134 a share. The next is not declared; on a cadence of about 30 days the ex-date falls near Oct 1, 2026, which is an ETFIQ projection. Payment usually follows the ex-date by 4 days.
- What does BALQ cost?
- The prospectus expense ratio is 0.35% a year.
The words on this page
- Total return
- What a holder actually ended up with: price change plus every distribution, reinvested. The only figure that answers whether you came out ahead.
- Cash paid
- Distributions over the window as a share of what the fund cost at the start. A measure of cash delivered, not of return: a fund can pay a great deal and still lose money.
- Ahead or behind
- The fund’s total return minus the benchmark’s over exactly the same days, in percentage points. Both sides reinvest.
- Return of capital
- The issuer’s own estimate, in a Rule 19a-1 notice, of how much of a distribution was your own money returned. An estimate and a tax characterization, not a measure of erosion.
- Covered call
- Selling call options on shares the fund holds. It collects a premium and gives up the gains above the strike, which is why these funds pay well and lag a rising market.
Every term used here, defined in full on the income ETFs vocabulary page.
Where these figures came from
ETFIQ links to the documents behind every figure. It is not affiliated with any issuer, and a link is not an endorsement.
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Cite this page. ETFIQ, BALQ, income ETFs, data as of Sep 11, 2026. https://etfiq.com/funds/balq Free to use with attribution; the underlying files are at Open data.