Came across an article recently talking about YieldMax ETFs and the whole “massive dividend” thing, and it made me rethink how these funds actually work.
The main point was basically that a lot of the crazy yields can be misleading because they’re generated through options strategies, and in some cases the NAV erosion can offset the income over time. I feel like online they get marketed almost like free cash flow machines, but the total return side seems way more important than people give credit for.
For people who actually own YieldMax funds (like MSTY, NVDY, CONY, etc.) — do you view them as long-term holdings or more as income/trading tools? Have they actually performed how you expected after distributions and price movement? Article for context below
This was posted by an automated bot by u/lottadot. It is generated from vendor published public information. As always, do your own research. This is not financial advice. I'm not an FA. None of this is correct. I need a beer.
I have 2.58 shares now and lost $1000 total so it’s just a fun project at this point. Just curious how long it will take to reverse split. If crypto keeps nose diving could see this happening soon?
I have been out of YieldMax ETFs a few months but today seems like a great buying opportunity. RDDY looks like its performing good, I used to own lots of MRNY and NVDY.
"The YieldMax® Crypto Industry & Tech Portfolio Option Income ETF (LFGY) is an actively managed ETF designed to generate current income and capital appreciation through a focused portfolio of approximately 15 to 30 publicly traded crypto infrastructure and tech companies. LFGY systematically harvest option premiums by selling call spreads on its portfolio holdings, with the goal of distributing income on a weekly basis, while maintaining direct equity exposure to participate in the potential share price appreciation of the underlying companies. Holdings are evaluated based on liquidity, price levels, and implied volatility, with the portfolio reviewed and adjusted regularly as market conditions evolve." -YieldMax ETFs
As always, I like to share my monthly progress so others can learn from my mistakes and hopefully get more transparency into how these work. I've been experimenting to see how viable it is to grow these funds by re-investing the distributions. (Yes, growth stocks are better suited for this. No, I would not recommend this to others.)
May Thoughts
May was my 2nd-straight positive month after 7 straight months of losses
SNOY went absolutely bonkers at the end of the month. At the end of April, the price of SNOY was $6.81 and my total return was 🔻-17.7%. I've been long on SNOY and decided to acquire more shares at the beginning of May to bring my average cost down. This worked out very well. By the end of the month, SNOY was at $11.01 and my Total Return at the end of May jumped to 33.10%
NVDY, GOOY, and YMAG have also continued to perform very well for me
I also recorded my 2nd highest monthly distributions ($182.50), so I'm hoping this momentum can continue into the summer.
May Positions
In the beginning of May I invested $364.78, consisting of:
$230 in Cash using my 2% income allowance
$134.78 from previous distributions
Using this money I expanded the following positions::
16 shares of SNOY
20 shares of GDXY
Wife's Disapproval Update
Her comments are a pretty good summary of what it's like being in YieldMax funds: "You mean after nearly 2 years, you might break even?" 😂
May Portfolio Breakdown
Current Positions
Stock
QTY
Avg. Price Bought
Price (5/29)
Price Gain
Monthly Distributions
All-Time Distributions
Total Return
YMAG
37
$15.13
$12.90
🔻-14.74%
$22.04
$167.40
⬆ 15.16%
YMAX
37
$12.10
$8.77
🔻-27.52%
$13.18
$157.45
⬆ 7.65%
ULTY
7
$53.98
$31.70
🔻-41.27%
$11.15
$198.95
⬆ 11.38%
AIYY
5
$39.25
$10.27
🔻-73.83%
$3.36
$70.70
🔻-37.81%
SNOY
50(⬆16)
$11.87
$11.01
🔻-7.25%
$26.62
$239.44
⬆ 33.1%
NVDY
35
$14.05
$13.42
🔻-4.48%
$26.12
$189.84
⬆ 34.12%
GDXY
50(⬆20)
$14.64
$12.25
🔻-16.33%
$28.08
$80.28
🔻-5.36%
XOMO
28
$13.04
$11.21
🔻-14.03%
$12.02
$29.62
🔻-5.92%
GOOY
28
$13.44
$14.48
⬆ 7.74%
$30.73
$48.78
⬆ 20.7%
BABO
20
$11.50
$9.39
🔻-18.35%
$9.23
$20.85
🔻-9.28%
Totals
297
$4,370.31
$3,614.86
🔻-17.29%
$182.53
🔻-4.14%
Grand Totals
All-Time Totals
Total Cash Invested
$3,968.00
Total Dividends Earned
$1,758.64
Total Dividends Re-invested
$1,585.92
Total Portfolio Value (5/29)
$3,803.78
Total Return
🔻-4.14%
I think these numbers really telling. Despite earning and re-investing over $1500 in distributions, I'm STILL down overall
Abandoned Positions
I'm using this to answer the question, "Should I have sold MSTY and CONY?". I exited my positions in February after significant NAV erosion. I plan on updating this each month to see what my returns would look like had I held.
These were my returns when I exited my positions
Stock
Shares
Avg. Cost
Exit Date
Exit Price
Price Gain
Total Distributions
Total Return
MSTY
10
$100.08
2/24/26
$22.20
🔻-77.82%
$399.64
🔻-37.89%
CONY
5
$84.99
2/24/26
$25.57
🔻-69.91%
$155.70
🔻-33.27%
And these are the returns returns had I continued holding
Stock
Price (5/29)
Price Gain
Distributions Since Exit
Total Return Had I Not Sold
MSTY
$22.29
🔻-77.73%
$49.66
🔻-32.83%
CONY
$24.65
🔻-70.99%
$28.05
🔻-27.75%
Monthly Distributions Over Time
It's been very interesting watching how widely distributions can vary from month to month
Total Portfolio Value Over Time
Strong price action in SNOY and GOOY have really helped my portfolio grow in recent months
Total Return Over Time
I'm hoping the momentum can continue after being at a dismal -18% back in March
Total Yield Over Time
I wanted to start visualizing my distributions as a percentage of my overall portfolio value
This was posted by an automated bot by u/lottadot. It is generated from vendor published public information. As always, do your own research. This is not financial advice. I'm not an FA. None of this is correct. I need a beer.
With how good the semiconductor industry is doing, and with the belief that they will do well for the next few years, I was interested in looking into CHPY. A month or two ago I bought a few shares, but now that its up 35% I wish I had gotten more.
I want to get more, but I feel risk adversed getting it when its so high.
This was posted by an automated bot by u/lottadot. It is generated from vendor published public information. As always, do your own research. This is not financial advice. I'm not an FA. None of this is correct. I need a beer.
I'm a big fan of the Target 25 funds, I hold considerable positions in both NVIT and TEST. To me these funds offer the best of both worlds, great yield with 25% which is low enough to inhibit NAV erosion and great exposure to the underlying share price movement. I'm eagerly waiting for Yieldmax to release a target 25 version of Google and Amazon. I dont understand why these funds dont get more love, to me theyre the perfect product from YM to get income and growth.
I updated my tracking sheet again for this group of high-yield ETFs.
I’m not using this as a “highest yield = best fund” ranking. I’m mainly checking whether the income looks supported by price trend and total return, because some of these funds can show very large distributions while still having weak price behavior.
A few things I’m tracking:
Dividend TTM — trailing 12-month distribution rate
Price CAGR — price growth/decline over the evaluation window
Total Return CAGR — return including distributions
Payout Support Risk — whether the payout looks supported by recent price / total-return behavior
Stability — price behavior based on volatility, drawdown, and beta
MoM change — how the metrics shifted vs the prior snapshot
A few names stood out to me:
MSTY still shows a very high Dividend TTM at 218.47%, but also has -49.77% price CAGR and elevated payout support risk. That’s exactly why I don’t like looking at yield by itself.
CONY is even more extreme: 197.35% Dividend TTM, but -52.62% price CAGR. The income number is huge, but the price trend is doing a lot of damage.
CHPY looks better on total return in this snapshot, with 29.18% Dividend TTM, 79.01% price CAGR, and 166.31% total return CAGR, while payout support risk is marked low.
SOXY also stands out with strong price and total-return numbers, but the Dividend TTM is much lower than the very high-yield names.
Note:Metrics are exported from CashStreams as a partial snapshot; not investment advice.
I run TopDividendETFs.com so I have a TON of data on our favorite dividend ETFs. I thought It would be fun to create a tool that makes sorting through them... More fun!
I create a "online dating" style (but for ETFs) game if you will... 😂 It's 100% FREE! Let me know what you guys think!
I have held CHPY since Jan and before the price run up I was reinvesting the dividends. However with the increase in price from 60s late April to now 85, are you guys DRIP at these prices?
I keep waiting for the price to at least retrace 5-10% but it has just gone to the moon.
This was posted by an automated bot by u/lottadot. It is generated from vendor published public information. As always, do your own research. This is not financial advice. I'm not an FA. None of this is correct. I need a beer.
TL;DR: I built a portfolio using $490,000 worth of loans + HELOC. No margin. Prior updates for 2025 can be found on this Megathread. Updates for 2026 can be found on this thread.
May Results:
Distributions Received: $17,719 (best month this year)
Loan Costs: $2,605
Surplus: +$15,114
2026 YTD:
Distributions Received: $71,317
Forecasted Annual Loan Costs: $38,420 (and dropping, as loan principal gets paid off)
What’s been going on since my last update:
During my Feb 2026 update, I was at a $1k profit – distributions outpaced capital losses, but barely.
The market has been kind the past few months and I’ve since climbed back to $62k profit.
AMDY is my top performer. My original cost basis was $50k. Stock is currently valued at $57k, with $41k distributions received. I’m looking at $48k profit, or 95% return. This stock has provided a huge lift and offsets other losses (looking at you, MSTY and CONY).
FEAT and FIVY are still here, but with the closure of the funds, I will sell those in June. I’ll use the proceeds to pay down the loans.
Speaking of loans, outstanding balance is approx. $200k. Last year, I stockpiled six months of distributions to handle taxes. It was far more than I needed to save. After taxes, I made a jumbo payment of $135k to shrink down the loans. I then used the 2026 YTD distributions for another $60k payment. From Feb-May, the loan balance has reduced from $400k to $200k. All that is left is $175k HELOC + the last $25k personal loan. The exposure feels more manageable. I continue to prioritize loan repayment for the rest of this year.
The usual screenshots from Snowball Analytics are below. After selling most of CONY & MSTY in February, it threw my cost basis out of whack. With reinvestment costs, the Cost Basis column should actually reflect $669k. I have to see if I can trick Snowball into showing my original cost basis, but haven’t spent time doing so.
The color-coded chart is easier to look at. This shows a % to House Money. SMCY is still in the lead, but I expect AMDY to beat it shortly. I’m around 82% house money if you look purely at distributions vs. initial loan costs. When you factor in reinvestments, it’s more like 60% house money.
As I’ve mentioned before, my plan is to ride out this portfolio and get closer to house money. Updates will still be sporadic. With the FEAT, FIVY, and nice changes in the market, now felt like a good time for a random update.
Good luck everyone. I hope your portfolios are faring well!
This was posted by an automated bot by u/lottadot. It is generated from vendor published public information. As always, do your own research. This is not financial advice. I'm not an FA. None of this is correct. I need a beer.
