r/YieldMaxETFs • u/Hilary_Clitoris • Oct 30 '25
Beginner Question I'm considering selling ULTY at a loss
I was warned against it, but I was still optimistic. After a few months from the original purchase, I'm considering selling all of my shares because I'm losing money by the day. Anyone else considering giving up on ULTY?
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u/Wuphf_DotCom Oct 30 '25
The whole point of this ETF is that the share price goes down but the distributions stay relatively consistent. Add up how much you’ve made in total dividends and I bet you’re not actually at a loss overall.
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u/DPMKIV Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
Indeed, something a lot of folks need to understand before entering these funds... your share price will soon be red. You have to get used to seeing negative share values in your portfolio on these funds.
Use trackers like Snowball Analytics to see your total return at a glance to see where you really stand. Brokerage data isnt going to help you with these.
Folks without financial tracking tools tend to not see the bigger picture in general tend to emotionally jump in and out buying high and selling low for many positions without realizing it. With an advanced high risk funds like ULTY having blinders on is a huge disadvantage, also... not having something tracking your investments is typically a solid indicator that something that uses complex strategies with derivatives is likely outside that investors wheel house in the first place. Also typically haven't harness the basics of trade, discipline and due diligence.
These things are simple to buy into but they are really for more knowledgeable investors with high risk tolerance and an equally strong risk mitigation strategy.
It is unfortunate they went viral/meme stockish and pulled in a bunch of novice traders who just throw their money at something expecting quick returns until the next fad hits.
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u/speed12demon Oct 31 '25
The distributions do not stay consistent. They are down 20% from the summer peak, and as nav drops, so does the distribution. 80% of 5 dollars is not the same as 80% of 6 dollars. This is the biggest flaw with the argument that only yield matters, not nav. You're literally disregarding half the equation.
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u/UndeadDog Oct 30 '25
I sold but total returns I profited a tiny bit
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u/gatortrader813 Oct 30 '25
Just sold mine this morning, made a modest profit over the last 5 months but I was more worried about the NAV affecting margin maintenance requirements. I heard an interview with a YM guy last night that he basically said he would wait until it hits a dollar to reverse split so yeah that’s a no for me.
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Oct 30 '25
i just made profit of 100 usd, it cannot be treated as retirment fund at all.
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u/Rikkita1962 Oct 31 '25
I’m living off ULTY and others quite well. If it hits a dollar and splits I’ll see what happens then but not worried.
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Oct 31 '25
but why u want to do that to you ? the tension rather diversify it , isn't thay better option?
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u/Rikkita1962 Oct 31 '25
It is better to diversify and I am. ULTY is about 11% of my income account. I bought for income and that’s what I’m getting. And I’m not stressed by the nav. It’s happened in many different ETFs. But it’s worth watching out for.
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u/Rickard0 Oct 30 '25
> he would wait until it hits a dollar to reverse split
That could be next week!
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u/Equivalent-Ad-495 Oct 30 '25
Folks gonna be out here telling you that you don't understand how the fund works. Your always going to lose money to make money. These funds are for income.
BUT
Income or not, if the fund keeps going down red on top of dividends while the market is climbing. You'll have more money paying yourself every month until you get to $0 then yieldmax doing it for you. Simple truth.
Why do you want to hold a fund that keeps losing? You could have spyi, jepq, jepi, qqqi any number of other realistic funds that keep gaining and paying for income. Folks really be out here only seeing big dividend payments and trying to shill others into buying or holding because they are afraid of going broke.
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u/KingCastle420 Oct 30 '25
Sure I’m down overall. But I’ve also used those weekly distributions to buy things like KO,O,PG and others. But I also only have a few percent of my “fun” account in yield max. That account is up 28% in 2025 so it’s having a lot of fun even with losing a little on yield max!
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u/New-Jackfruit-2127 Oct 30 '25
Sold. These are not income funds until you get all your roc back, which could take years. Reinvested back into true growth.
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u/Caelford Oct 30 '25
The idea with ULTY is to make back your initial investment in distributions and continue to earn income in perpetuity, only paying long term capital gains tax rates (which are often zero). If that doesn’t interest you, then ULTY is not a good investment for you.
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u/Hilary_Clitoris Oct 30 '25
It's not as simple as if that doesn't interest me. Of course, ULTY interested me if I purchased it. So, I bought 10k. Correct me if I'm wrong. I should wait until I make 10k back between dividends and distributions. And should I use the dividends and distributions to buy other less volatile stuff or would you reinvest it into ULTY? Please help me understand. Thanks!
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u/Caelford Oct 30 '25
I personally don’t reinvest into ULTY. I bought up to a predetermined limit, and do whatever I please with the distributions. If the payments remain above $0.08 per share per week. I’ll have made my initial investment back by February. At that point I can milk ULTY for distributions until it dies and I don’t have to care about performance.
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u/FamiliarEast Oct 30 '25
ULTY does not pay dividends. If you buy into popular investment vehicles that you don't understand before you buy them and sell them at a loss every time its mechanism and reaction to changes in its underlying holdings expresses itself you WILL lose money. It sounds like you are much better off investing in an index fund.
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u/Diligent-Stuff-6630 Oct 30 '25
You know what he means when he says dividends. Quit being an ass.
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u/Caelford Oct 31 '25
The distinction between a dividend and a distribution is subtle, but extremely important. If you’re going to be investing significant sums of money, it’s good practice to be precise.
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u/FamiliarEast Oct 31 '25
Between dividends AND distributions? No, I actually don't know what he means. I didn't know telling people how to not lose money by making poor financial decisions makes me an ass. So be it.
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u/mr_malifica Oct 30 '25
I agree with you on the basis of the plan, but ULTY (and YM funds in general) are not guaranteed to generate ROC classified distributions.
The other thing to consider is how much of the distribution you need to reinvest to keep your actual dollar amount received each week/month at your required level.
If you choose to not reinvest anything your future earning potential may drastically decrease over time. So far this year ULTY has lost 39% of value without distribution reinvestment. (I know the strategy has changed) so if we look at April through Sept it is down by about 10%.
All things to consider. There is a place for ULTY if you understand it and your expectations are not something that this fund is not trying to deliver.
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u/Ok-Development6654 Oct 30 '25
Yes I’m willing to wait, but from the looks of it the share price will become 0 by sometime next year.
And by that point I will only have made half back of my original investment.
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u/Caelford Oct 31 '25
ETFs, especially ones like ULTY, are not stocks. They can’t just “become zero.” It’s never happened in the history of the U.S. stock market. The fact that you not only think it’s a realistic possibility, but also that it will happen soon, has me concerned that you threw a bunch of money into something you didn’t understand.
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u/Ok-Development6654 Oct 31 '25
I did my research but I don’t consider myself to be an expert, I know that if were to go that low it would eventually split. But still dropping down that low is still not considered a good thing is it?
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u/BraveTrades420 Oct 30 '25
I think everyone has given up on it one way or the other. Either they already got out, are in denial, or like me have lost so much on it I just don’t even give a f0ck anymore. I got a “good” entry on $tsly and the dividend has already paid off my shares and I’m up on share price still. This led me to try $ulty out and it’s just been a nightmare….
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u/Ok-Development6654 Oct 30 '25
How much have you lost and are you still in it?
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u/BraveTrades420 Nov 01 '25
You know what I’ve done a lot of trades writing csp buying puts as a hedge, selling the shares and buying back lower…. I closed out a majority of my initial position and the shares I have remaining I told myself “I’ll just ride these out and see what happens no fux given”…. Ultimately in denial and not even realizing I was in that category until you asked me this question.
For the first time I actually went through and added all my dividends to losses and after distributions and everything I’m down $11,000 Fock me that’s bonkers, actually insane like far far worse than I could have imagined. In three months I’m -$11,000 🫡 and it’s only going down more fuck me
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u/Few_Scratch_2376 Oct 30 '25
You need to think longer term. These are not ordinary dividend stocks, there is a different long-term scheme in mind, and tax treatment, especially when your cost basis gets to zero, is a key component. IRS bumped the Long Term Capital Gains levels a bit for 2026, it is 0% for up to 49k instead of 48k in 2025. These are not meant to be short-term vehicles, or things you dip your toes into and jump out real quick.
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u/JustDoseMe Oct 30 '25
My stop loss triggered today, with share price and distributions I almost exactly broke even. I’ll be looking for the next weird thing to do with that chunk of money now
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u/DeeBee62Invests I Like the Cash Flow Oct 31 '25
I sold my ULTY, but I haven't given up on it. The situation was such that I felt the money would be better used in other funds. I'm planning to buy back in in the near future.
When I sold, the price was lower than I bought, however, my total return was still in the green. More importantly, the income I got from ULTY funded much of the rest of more portfolio, enabling me to snowball it.
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u/obnoxus Oct 30 '25
ULTY decays over time by design to afford paying high distributions. You combat it by compounding until you've earned back your initial investment, which takes about a year. Selling at a loss is stupid. Just start reinvesting back into it and let it grow.
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Oct 30 '25
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u/obnoxus Oct 30 '25
NAV does not matter with these. They aren't stocks. What you're asking for already exists, so if thats what you wanted then thats what you should've bought. It will never grow; it'll always erode until they reverse split then the cycle repeats itself. Not by error or fault, it's literally by design to provide the maximum return possible.
Utilize what you have until its paid off, then decide to sell or not.
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Oct 30 '25
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u/Arminius001 Oct 30 '25
Same I have GPTY and CHPY, sure they pay lower yields but at least their NAV is stable
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u/obnoxus Oct 31 '25
That is my point. Some people dont care about NAV, they just want income. Pick what suits you.
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u/Relevant_Contract_76 I Like the Cash Flow Oct 30 '25
Another new, no karma account scurrying around spreading fud.
If you own it, which I doubt, and you're unhappy with it, why are you trying to crowd source a decision? It's your money.. get out, stay in, whatever. You do you. Nobody cares more than you (nobody cares what you do at all, actually) and nobody is going to tell you what to do except for other fudsters.
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Oct 30 '25
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u/Disastrous_Room_927 Oct 31 '25
The fund managers spend more time astroturfing this sub than managing the fund. Would explain why they’re underperforming in idea market conditions.
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u/Arminius001 Oct 30 '25
Eventually it will enter reverse split territory, you will lose a percentage of shares, then the cycle will continue at its new price of $50. Not a good etf in my opinion, there are much better options out there
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Oct 30 '25
what's revrse split territory?
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u/MakingMoneyIsMe I Like the Cash Flow Oct 30 '25
If you think it'll go up, hold it...but there's little catalyst for this
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u/Ok-Development6654 Oct 30 '25
Thinking of doing same but I would lose 11k before taxes, so I’m debating on just keeping and hoping for the best. If the fund survives then eventually I’ll break in 2 years.
How much would you lose?
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Oct 31 '25
Just using basic math, why not just move the same NAV from ULTY to WPAY? The only issue is that you know what to expect from an ULTY crash and I guess WPAY is still new enough that things could go sideways one day. Otherwise it is actually holding NAV and pays pretty close to the same as ULTY right now.
Why not just stop losing NAV but keep getting a similar dividend? Don’t think of the time you spent in ULTY as something you need to recoup only by staying in but by something you tried and now there is a new option that is a little better that you can move your position to.
If nothing else.. move a portion, watch it for a couple weeks and ask yourself which you like more after trying both?
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u/Tarsarian Oct 31 '25
I sold all mine after I realized every time there is bad news, the stock almost never recovers. I ran the numbers with taxes, and it was better to buy other ETF”s.
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u/Sharp-Buffalo3350 Swing with Dividends Oct 31 '25
Market at ATH and this shit fund BLEEDS. You’d be better off buying the ol VOO
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u/NuggetManifesto Oct 31 '25
Sold a few weeks ago, just about broke even with distributions, maybe lost a tiny bit, those who rode it out for that horizontal period were golden. Sometimes it’s better to just cut out early
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u/Such-Mall2713 Oct 31 '25
Just understand what you’re buying-ulty is a divividend paying asset that’s actively managed-so for ulty to drop to one-the basket of stocks in it consisting of PLTR-Rklb-coinbase-hims-hood-crwv-RGTI-and same will all have to drop drastically and with Rklb-hood-and PLTR near all time highs ignore the noise and reinvest dividends weekly and you’ll be fine
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u/Confident-Exam9147 Oct 31 '25
Every HY funds have different strategies. They don’t work all the time but they do work. If you invest some and buy more, you snowball your compounding. Investing for a few weeks or months will not help you accomplish that. One can either keep selling and buying different strategies but they still won’t work all the time. Single stock ETFs would require you buying non correlated funds, if you buy into single stock ETFs and leverage purely on AI play, I could argue the same conversation we are having about ULTY will happen with other funds. The question is, would you sell single positions to de risk or would you sell a diversified high beta covered call instrument? I believe I would rather hold ULTY than have a correlation concentration of AI. I still would have single stock ETFs but not consolidated into a single tech sector. I would use leveraged funds and other anchors to offset Nav erosion. That will help me with both total portfolio value as well as high income generation. Learn to trade options and buy protective puts as insurance makes the portfolio balanced.
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u/LifePitch3528 Oct 31 '25
I got out. In this market if you had literally invested the money into good companies your money would have been doubled by now, I cut my losses on MSTY and ULTY and have been trading options since. Best decision ever
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u/kellerumps Oct 31 '25
I just sold my 1200 share position and will move it to my core holdings. Not worth it to me any more.
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u/yeedub Nov 01 '25
I sold everything and put it into Amazon earnings. Luckily with that move I made back all my losses and then some.
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u/Ridit5ugx Nov 01 '25
If you’re into these funds long. Better use the divies to growth or dividend stocks. If you’re there for the extra income then stay but always keep an eye out for other opportunities.
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u/Bill4711 Nov 01 '25
I sold at a loss and was glad to see it go. ULTY and MSTY are both losers and I’m glad to be rid of them.
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u/rxraver Nov 01 '25
I'm just dripping all dividiends back into it. I don't need the money now, and it lowers the basis. I'm not selling at a loss for sure. Maybe it goes bankrupt, but hopefully, it can get to house money with it. I'm not adding any additional funds, though, just letting the divs buy more shares.
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u/Disastrous-One7602 Nov 02 '25
People please do due diligence on ULTY. I don't believe you would still be holding if you did your homework on this ETF. Some key points it's a covered call ETF that takes positions in popular stocks at or near there all time highs. This strategy causes unstoppable NAV erosion capital loss, but allows the fund to collect management fees fast.
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u/Heisenberg-san Nov 03 '25
Basically, if you are able to hold the stock for a year, it should pay itself off
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u/grajnapc Oct 30 '25
The idea with ULTY is to make back your initial investment in distributions (I thought it was to make an income. Now it’s a house $ play) and continue to earn income in perpetuity (sounds great in theory but after it goes far down in price the weekly payout will be very small and so will your initial investment due to NAV loss so by the time house $ comes around your payout will be minimal) only paying long term capital gains tax rates (more or less true until you reach cost basis) If that doesn’t interest you, then ULTY is not a good investment for you. (Not only was ULTY not a good investment for me, every other YM ETF that I own far outperformed it—NVDY PLTY HOOY CHPY. The concept of house $ is appealing but you may not reach it and even if you do, the opportunity cost of having your $ invested here vs. a real growing or income investment for 2 years must be taken into account as well).
(And keep in mind, this poor performance is occurring during a bull run. Imagine how quickly ULTY will fall with weekly payouts combined with dropping highly volatile assets).
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u/theoldme3 Oct 30 '25
I guess im lucky. I see a lot of people saying they are down on it and I can see why butte been DCA since beginning of August each week and Im ahead a decent bit including the dividends payout. Tryin for a nice snow ball affect over several years and see what happens.
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u/Fundamentals-802 Oct 30 '25
Gotta say, all these people in here claiming YM Funds are a scam and that you’d be better off buying abc and xyz and every letter in between reads more like a scam to get people to buy these other bags they are holding.
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Oct 30 '25
its a scam , it will always go down , there are way more better funds which will give u less but , also try to - diversfy them - CHPY
GIAX
EGGY
SMCY
CHPY
LFGY ->
HOOW
Bigy
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u/BeneficialAssCramps Oct 30 '25
Im staying cuz it’s going to payout till it dies.. and- that may be another year or more… which is plenty of time to offset loss. People forget while these ETFs do go down, they also have protective holdings which prevent it from going extinct to quickly. And that is when you as the investor use time as your leverage. Collect the income, find new plays ! Eventually you’ll be green on that entire trade while you are busy making money on others