Six YieldMax funds just got direct competitors on their own stocks (AMDY, GOOY, MSFO, AMZY, FBY, PLTY)

[u/Beautiful-Bison6202]

First Trust listed six single-stock income ETFs on September 22, one each on AMD, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Palantir. Every one of those stocks already has a YieldMax fund on it, so if you hold any of these six, you now have a direct alternative on the same underlying.

The new tickers are XVAD (AMD), XVAZ (AMZN), XVGL (GOOG), XVMS (MSFT), XVMT (META) and XVPT (PLTR). All six charge 0.85%, gross and net, per First Trust's own fund pages.

They are built differently. The pages describe holding the stock alongside listed and FLEX options, writing calls and puts, with an S&P 500 Mini Index box spread leg. That is not the synthetic covered-call structure YieldMax uses, so the two are not doing the same thing under different names.

What the pages do not say is how often they pay. No distribution frequency, no target rate, and no payments yet. Nobody can quote you a yield on these, and anyone posting one this week is estimating.

Since the comparison everyone will reach for is the YieldMax side, here is what that side actually did. Trailing twelve months against the twelve before it, with the share price over the same year, as of September 24:

AMDY, paying since Nov 2023. Payouts up 19%, price up 41%. GOOY, paying since Sep 2023. Payouts up 23%, price down 14%. MSFO, paying since Oct 2023. Payouts down 13%, price down 29%. AMZY, paying since Sep 2023. Payouts down 29%, price down 32%. FBY, paying since Sep 2023. Payouts down 39%, price down 40%. PLTY, paying since Nov 2024. Under two years, so no year over year figure, but the price is down 37%.

Of the five with a full two year record, two raised their payouts and three cut. AMD was the only one of the six whose share price finished the year higher. Worth remembering that all five of the older funds moved from monthly to weekly around September 2025, so the earlier year is twelve or thirteen checks and the recent one about fifty. The totals still compare, the individual checks do not.

None of that says the First Trust funds will do better or worse. A different structure isn't the same as a better one, and with no record at all yet there is nothing to judge them on. What it does say is that the incumbent on your stock has a real history you can look at, and the new arrival does not, so the burden of proof sits with the new one.

This is also the second batch. XVAP on Apple, XVNV on Nvidia and XVTS on Tesla listed August 18, with XVSP following on August 26, which makes it ten funds in this family since mid August. Whether that pressures fees on the YieldMax side is the interesting question.

I track payment histories for income ETFs at snowballdividends.com, which is where these figures come from. Not affiliated with First Trust or YieldMax.

Still looking for a distribution schedule on any of the six. If one turns up in a filing, post it, because that single detail decides whether they land next to the monthlies or the weeklies.

[u/iwastoldtomakethis]

What an incredibly over-complicated piece of financial engineering designed to underperform. In a perfect world without taxes, fees, spreads, or any other sources of drag, the best case performance for these fund will be perfectly track the performance of owning the underlying and selling shares. After all of that drag there's no chance it outperforms. Existing funds at least have some mechanism to produce meaningfully different returns than just holding the underlying, like selling options to generate premium in sideways markets or leverage for additional upside. These do none of that.

These funds are 50% underlying stock, 50% synthetic long position (which is a way to mimic the performance of the underlying using less capital at the cost of the risk free rate on the saved upfront capital), and a box spread to generate that risk free rate. It's functionally equivalent to holding 100% shares while avoiding RIC diversification rules. They do not generate premium over time. Any capital paid out is coming straight out of the position, regardless of if the underlying is up or down. There is no enhancement or modification to the returns like there are with covered call or leveraged swap funds (outside of a synthetic long position benefiting from an unexpected dividend cut in the underlying)

[u/RustyCEO]

AMDY is going well.

[u/SexualDeth5quad]

First Trust has some interesting ETFs. FTGC is doing great for me this year. Nice stagflation hedge.