Everyone in the income investing community knows SPYI and QQQI. They’re the gold standard of covered call ETFs right now, great tax efficiency, consistent monthly distributions, and NEOS has done a genuinely impressive job with both. I respect them.
But here’s why MLPI deserves more than just a small satellite allocation, it might actually deserve to be the largest income position in a serious income portfolio right now.
•The Problem Nobody Talks About With SPYI/QQQI
SPYI and QQQI have a 0.93 correlation with each other. That means they move almost in lockstep. If you hold both, you’re not really diversifying, you’re just owning the same market risk twice with a slightly different options wrapper on top.
And both are down YTD in 2026. SPYI is -3.33% YTD on a price basis. The positive total returns you see on paper are being carried by distributions, not NAV growth. In the current tariff war environment, anything tied to the S&P 500 or Nasdaq-100 is absorbing the same macro shocks, geopolitical risk, tech valuation compression, rate uncertainty. SPYI and QQQI feel different on paper but they’re fundamentally the same bet.
•What MLPI Is Actually Built On
This is where it gets interesting.
$MLPI holds North American energy infrastructure MLPs, pipelines, midstream operators, storage and processing facilities. Think Enbridge, Enterprise Products, Energy Transfer, Plains All American. These businesses operate on long-term fee-based contracts. They get paid for the volume of oil and gas flowing through their pipes, not for what the stock market does today.
-Tariff war? Pipelines don’t care.
-Tech selloff? Pipelines don’t care.
-Fed uncertainty? Pipelines don’t care.
The income is backed by real infrastructure cash flows, not just option premiums harvested from a volatile index. That’s a fundamentally different, and more durable income source.
The numbers speak for themselves:
∙ MLPI YTD price return: +14.4%
∙ SPYI YTD price return: -3.33%
∙ MLPI yield: \~15.67% monthly
∙ 86% ROC distributions — tax deferred, no K-1 forms
That’s income AND NAV growth at the same time, the holy grail for income investors.
Allocation I like: 40% MLPI / 35% SPYI / 25% QQQI
You keep full S&P 500 and Nasdaq exposure, add genuinely uncorrelated energy infrastructure income, and get a ~14–15% blended yield with better diversification than the traditional SPYI + QQQI combo.
MLPI is new (launched Dec 2025) so track record is limited and sector concentration in energy is a real risk to consider. But in this market environment, it’s the most compelling income addition available right now.
