In the sometimes wild world of high-yield option strategy ETFs, probably no fund showed the crazy side more than the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF (ULTY). ULTY launched on February 28, 2024, with the intention of generating significant option premium income from some of the most volatile stocks in the market. The ETF has a current distribution yield of 86%.
For the first year, ULTY struggled with significant NAV erosion. You can see from this chart how rapidly the share price declined, and the total return was a negative 4% at ULTY’s one-year birthday.
In early 2025, the YieldMax fund managers made significant changes to the ULTY investing and trading strategies. They adopted hedge fund strategies to help maintain a stable share price while still offering an eye-popping yield. Here is the ULTY total return chart starting at the bear market bottom in April 2025:
The 44% total return since the bear market puts ULTY near the top of returns from covered call ETFs.
Here comes ULTI
On October 31, Rex Shares launched the REX IncomeMax Option Strategy ETF (ULTI). Here is the fund description from the Rex Shares website:
The REX IncomeMax Option Strategy ETF is a sophisticated strategy targeting the market’s most volatile U.S. stocks with an options strategy that dynamically adjusts to changing market conditions. By implementing and managing a mix of put and call positions on these stocks, ULTI seeks to turn volatility into weekly income with downside mitigation against extreme market swings through active positioning.
It appears that ULTI will operate in a manner very similar to ULTY. Both pay dividends weekly, and once it starts paying, I expect ULTI also to have a very large distribution yield.
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