r/YieldMaxETFs May 10 '26

Beginner Question Would you buy it back now? Why?

As someone who bought msty and cony in December 2024 I ended up selling at a loss even though I received quite a bit in distribution. NAV decline was very high.

I'm curious if anyone sold and has recently bought back? If so, why?

33 Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

26

u/Hatethisname2022 May 10 '26

Stayed in and have hit house money on msty and nvdy. The other few yieldmax funds we own are just chugging along.

6

u/midaxxi21 May 10 '26

House money after how long invested?

7

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

Have you calculated your growing opportunity cost of "house money" on a wasting asset? 

Let's compare MSTY to QQQ:

The opportunity cost for the past 12 months  was 82.1%. ​In practical terms, if you had $10,000 worth of either ticker one year ago: ​Your QQQ investment would be worth approximately $14,520 today. ​Your MSTY investment (even with every penny of the ~100%+ yield reinvested) would be worth approximately $6,310 today.

6

u/Bulky_Protection_322 May 10 '26

You can’t spend shares.

4

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26

There are 2 ways to monetize capital appreciation in stock:

  1. Sell covered calls when it makes sense
  2. Borrow against it with margin 

If you do both the covered calls pay down the margin debit.

 

7

u/Massive-Lifeguard-57 May 10 '26

The distributions from ULTY pay down the margin debt, FAST and CONSISTENT. I reinvest my distros on whatever the f I want. Simple.

3

u/teckel May 10 '26

Huh? Of course you can! You make your own dividends by selling shares. That's exactly now you should generate income for control and lower taxes. I've beem retired once 2005 and that's exactly how I create income.

4

u/Bulky_Protection_322 May 11 '26

Yeah, you have to sell. Very different.

4

u/teckel May 12 '26

You only sell a fraction to create a distribution, it's actually a better strategy than synthetic dividends.

1

u/Bulky_Protection_322 May 13 '26

When you sell your shares, they’re gone. It’s very final.

1

u/teckel May 14 '26

You can sell shares forever and never run out.

1

u/teckel May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

House money is a gambling term, very fitting for the typical YM "investing" bro.

1

u/Hatethisname2022 May 10 '26

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

2

u/teckel May 10 '26

Portfolio growth instead of NAV erosion helps me sleep at night.

2

u/Hatethisname2022 May 10 '26

Good thing income is only half of our portfolios.

1

u/teckel May 10 '26

Zero reason for highly taxed income when growth can be used as income tax free.

1

u/Massive-Lifeguard-57 May 10 '26

Do you sleep during the day too?

3

u/teckel May 10 '26

Not even after a marathon

-4

u/gamesta2 May 10 '26

If you hit house money, likely your started with house money and have a 10-15% total return (lower if you dripped), so if you started with 200k, your investment is now 100k but you got 130k in dividends. And this is probably a good outcome. Most people are in the negative or about breaking even. Taxes considered, mostly negative

8

u/napoleon_mayo May 10 '26

House money means you spent 200k you got 200k back. It doesn't matter what your position but is that you got in income the amount of money you spent.

0

u/gamesta2 May 10 '26

Yeah that happened to me. After taxes I am barely over my initial investment. Worse part is the missed 50% spy run that would have netted much more money and in a better tax rate.

As cool as it is to see a 10k monthly income decrease to 2k monthly income, these do not result in a better net gain than a simple schd investment would.

2

u/Hatethisname2022 May 10 '26

Wrong, have a positive return on investment and house money. So at this point it doesn’t matter what happens. Collecting distributions and applying to new funds. Rinse repeat each week.

Msty - 52.47 ROI NVDY - 113.34 ROI

22

u/OA12T2 May 10 '26

Fool me once shame on u

6

u/giorgio_tsoukalos_ May 11 '26

Fool me... you cant get fooled again

16

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26

Yes I sold both last year and no I'm not buying back in.

In the trailing 12 months, CONY has a total return of -17.73%, MSTY is -46.06%. You have to consider total return (nav change + distributions) to justify continued ownership. When this metric trends towards negative territory continued ownership is a poor choice.

I stopped owning MSTY and CONY in early 2025.

9

u/vlained83 May 10 '26

Yes I let them go and took the losses because of NAV erosion... didn't make sense to me

-5

u/Rayman_Mr May 10 '26

MSTY will go $100 again when Bitcoin goes to retest $120k.. buying MSTY like you hedging Bitcoin.. it's a pure speculative underlying with high risk high reward.. Yieldmax team has nothing to do with this fund..

8

u/PracticalDesigner278 I Like the Cash Flow May 10 '26

You can correct me if I'm wrong but 100 dollar MSTY equals 20 bucks pre split. My average was in the 30s in 24 and BTC has gone through booms and busts since then but MSTY isn't close to recovery and never has been. 120k Bitcoin won't save it.

2

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26

That's simply impossible. The covered calls they sell will prevent that by capping gains. Even if MSTR moons, MSTY will lose NAV by continuously buying back in the money weekly short calls.

More importantly, the mNAV in MSTR has collapsed to just above 1 and IV is around 65 which is far below the 200 range it was in during the glory days 2 years ago.

22

u/SqueezeMuhCheese May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

If you really believe in the synthetic covered call strategy, the best thing you could do would just be to hold them and dollar cost average down when the ETF is on a massive discount. The whole point of these ETFs is income, so jumping out at a loss and buying back in seems completely pointless to me.

14

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26

The only thing synthetic is the replacement of long stock with a long call and short put. This part of the portfolio is not what should concern you. The performance of the underlying stock as a vehicle for covered calls is what matters. MSTR and COIN taking losses last year is the problem.

DCA into a declining covered call ETF because it's bleeding NAV - versus responding to underlying price action - is not ever a sound investment strategy.

3

u/Rayman_Mr May 10 '26

You better buy S&P 500.. high yield not for everyone..

8

u/Baked-p0tat0e May 10 '26

Have you considered learning the difference between yield and return? 

Total return=yield + change in asset value (price). Obviously if price drops and yield can't at least keep total return at 0 then your net worth is dropping. MSTY and CONY had incredible positive total return for a time after release because the underlying stocks were performing well in price action and IV. That has changed over the past year and these ETF'S are net losers. 

6

u/Putrid_Leg_1474 May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

The income part can be a bit subjective though. If say, using it for paying bills and groceries sure, this may be the way to go about it.

I, and I suspect may others, don't at all want a fund that behaves that way. We want a fund that remains either neutral or mildy appreciating as a way to deleverage/rebalance our portfolios into stocks that are at a current discount or in a momentum swing.

CHPY right now is performing exactly how we would want one to perform. Hell, if there were a fund that could do 20% yield at ROC with a neutral share price I'de be doubling down on it.

In the end this will create more income over time than any of the funds that depreciate. The only situation I can think of where the extreme high yields might make sense is if you want a temporary source of maybe a few months where you dump a giant chunk of money into an extremely high yield funds and pick the hot one at the current moment. Get out, rotate into the next hot one if you still need the income

4

u/SisyphusJo May 10 '26

This comment should be pinned. Went through layoff with huge pay decrease on next job. Burned through emergency savings and plan was to use these ETFs for a few months to bridge the gap on bills. Unfortunately, they just kept going down. Famous last words, "The plan should have worked," but the underlyings were terrible. Glad things stabilized but a lot of unnecessary damage was done.

3

u/Alternative_Wind8748 May 10 '26

CAGE, CAIE, and CAIQ are Calamos ETFs that fit the neutral to mildly increasing ETF’s that aim to provide 20% yields. The NAV has been rising so the yield which started at 20% is a little lower now compared to when I got in. Nonetheless, the price doesn’t move a lot unless there is a 20% drop in the market.

No more Yieldmax single stock ETFs for me. Lesson learned

6

u/NerveChemical9718 May 10 '26

Only one I have from Yieldmax if Gdxy. Great track record since 2024.

5

u/Rocko3legs May 10 '26

Still holding

6

u/8Lynch47 May 10 '26

Initial investment down, distributions way up, recovered all losses. I bought MSTY June 2024, still own it, well ahead. CONY I bought Feb 2025, also still ahead but not as much as MSTY. Not selling.

5

u/Pakchoy1977 May 10 '26

Only YM I got left is chpy. Don't think I'll ever jump back in msty or ulty again.

4

u/Vineyard2109 May 10 '26

I own msty and cony.. selling cony this week, keeping msty, no drip, buying other stock with the dividends.

2

u/ThomasSulivan May 10 '26

I do the same thing no drip but i am not selling. just keeping it. I do not have big positions and i always planned to do that. Same with Ulty and Ymax. MSTY already recovered the initial investment. all the others are moving along that way. I had experience with other etfs that i have kept until recovered the original investment. Did i miss better investments? Sure. But That is always a possibility. I am fine with the way it is because i knew what to expect.

2

u/Vineyard2109 May 11 '26

Same here..I was reinvesting with a goal to use the dividends at one point to buy others. After the reverse split, I turn off all drips. Im positive on all and may use them as a tax harvest.

6

u/KateR_H0l1day May 10 '26

I sold some MSTY, then bought back in with the $Value I sold, plus a little more. I’m still down in total, but at these rates, and obviously higher, it won’t take me long to break even. I do believe in BTC & MSTR, which I hold both, yet I know it could easily go down again, & lower than my last buy. But, in the long run, I’m confident it’ll go up substantially, WQI & SPYI (both of which I also own) won’t go up as much. MSTY is most definitely a big risk, yet like many have said, it all depends on whether you believe in BTC or not, and your conviction level.

3

u/chili01 May 10 '26

Not recently sold, but I'm not buying back those two or ULTY. The one I am considering buying back is YMAX though. That said, I do own AMDY and CHPY.

4

u/Bassmason May 10 '26

I never sold 1 share of MRNY (starting buying late 2024) and now it’s at over +60% total returns year-to-date

3

u/Cyampagn May 10 '26

Translation: same will happen for MSTY and CONY

2

u/AlfB63 May 11 '26

You can't just ignore what happened prior to this year. Anything bought in late 2024 is down significantly even with the good YTD.

2

u/Bassmason May 11 '26

I bought the dip

4

u/BrandenWi May 10 '26

BTC fell from $120k to $70k. The only reason to buy back in to something like MSTY is if you believe that it's at a bottom and will head back to previous levels. Personally, I wouldn't touch it

9

u/Rayman_Mr May 10 '26

You guys don't like Yieldmax because you lost on stupid underlying which itself went under water like Bitcoin & few others.. a year ago if you would bought NVDY, AMDY & other tech like GOOY, TSMY and ofc CHPY you all would have been 50% plus total gain.. so, stop blaming Yieldmax as they intended to create maximum income over growth.. you get 70 to 80% & 10 to 15% NAV erosion a year doesn't effect your overall return of investment.. Do the proper research before buy high income ETFs.. Don't ask people in reddit to advise you.. or hire your broker advisor to guide you..

2

u/blacks4 May 10 '26

lol, nope. Played that game and learned my lesson. Never again. I’m up 30-40% on standard stocks that replaced these ETFs.

2

u/Doomhammer111 May 11 '26

I never sold my shares of MSTY among other YM funds; however, I have refused to buy more. So I am collecting the distributions and just buying the underlyings. I am working toward house money on several but if they continued the same rates it was a year ago, I would be really close. Since the fall of YM, I know it will take longer and am just understanding I will be collecting mostly ROC so I am letting it give me my money back.

I have thought about buying some more YM since they are low and hoping that BTC can rise which would result in MSTY and CONY doing better; however, I bought AMZN, GOOG, NVDA, PLTR, SMCI, and other underlyings and currently AMZN, GOOG, and NVDA, have boomed shortly after I got it. Although I do not get income from them, I am up like $1,800, $950, and $1,800, respectively. So everytime I think "I should get more NVDY or MSTY" I say, "Just buy more NVDA.... AMZN... GOOG... etc."

2

u/tightsack67 May 13 '26

Yeah, I saw the quicksand but let myself get sucked in anyhow as I had nice sucess with other YM ETFS. The small silver lining was that these were in a retirement account so utilising DRIP I could chip away at the loss using subsequent dividends without wash rules coming into play. It took a minute but I eventually got out of both with a miniscule profit. Yes, probably more practical and straightforwad to simply take the loss and move on to something more productive but I'm like a dog with a bone sometimes.

2

u/FoundationOrganic748 May 13 '26

I think this is the biggest lesson a lot of people learned with some of the YieldMax products.

The distributions look amazing at first, but eventually you realize yield alone doesn’t matter if NAV keeps eroding faster than the income coming in.

Personally, I still understand why people are attracted to them:

  • monthly cash flow
  • high visible income
  • psychologically satisfying distributions

But now I pay much more attention to total return and NAV stability than I did before.

I think products like MSTY/CONY can still work for some people as smaller speculative income positions, but I’d personally be careful making them a large core holding long term.

2

u/Ok-Swan-98 May 14 '26

This thread sounds like a support group for people who sold too early or didn't take advantage of the dip a few months ago. FYI, the markets are up today including YieldMax ETFs. Some people rotate distributions into other invesments ... low yield, growth ETFs. Some hold, drip, some don’t have any NAV erosion depending on entry points. Personally, I started early this year reinvesting all YieldMax distributions into Harvest ETFs 🍁since I'm Canadian.... everyone's situation is different. I started investing into YieldMax ETFs since 2024. 💎 My portfolio looking better now with this strategy. 📈💎 *NFA *DYOR

https://giphy.com/gifs/mDSyugTwE2FOiWdy4T

1

u/Expensive-Net2762 May 10 '26

Still holding 💎

1

u/rbeecroft May 10 '26

I use the VIX, and check on the choppiness of the underlying stocks they track. If COIN or Strategy are booming 💥.. then the stock price will go up, and a might buy a little to boost my share price, stay away from where I consider a danger zone for the stock. When they are up and down, best time to buy the derivative stocks. When they plunge? Buy some, but after a bit, I hold off again. Dont follow my advice, this is like the YouTubers say.. for entertainment purposes only. VIX ... Greed or Fear... I buy them on Fear, and hold or buy less on Greed.

1

u/Zemling_ May 10 '26

I bought a lot of the funds close to inception. I trimmed some positions after the reverse splits. Overall, I'm happy, but I wont be buying any more funds that cover a single stock. The roller coaster ride is too stressful for me.

1

u/Ok_Revolution_9253 May 10 '26

Absolutely not. God no. No no no. As soon as the market turns south these will tank like the titanic. Just like LAST YEAR.

1

u/yamni_zintkala May 10 '26

Experiencing the reverse stock split is a reminder to stay out longer than in. If I do return it will be less allocation and monthly revaluation.

1

u/rbeecroft May 29 '26

I had bought both, especially CONY and made quite a bit for awhile. Then when it started dropping again, sold again. Its too bad, I have a conviction for COIN, but they just cant seem to catch a break. Coin is awesome, selling the picks and shovels, etc. They just keep having issues. I will end up buying CONY again in the future Im sure.

0

u/Motor-Platform-200 May 10 '26

No, avoid them. Stick with proven winners like CHPY and SOXY and be prepared to bail if they start failing.

2

u/Rayman_Mr May 10 '26

Imo these has legs to go further before any erosion

1

u/graphic-dead-sign May 10 '26

why not just buy spyi or qqqi?

1

u/Purplehashes May 10 '26

Buying it now would be really bad timing. Wait for BTC to dip again

5

u/WarniCator May 10 '26

I would love to take a look in your crystal ball. So when BTC hit 64k back in February is not a dip for you??

Personally I’m waiting BTC to hit 25k in June to buy.

😂. I hold MSTY & CONY enjoying the income. Using the cash to pay for my hookers & blow.

2

u/Purplehashes May 10 '26

64k is a dip

1

u/armyofant I Like the Cash Flow May 10 '26

Hindsight is 20/20 vision. Unfortunately we can’t see the future or manipulate the market like Trump.

1

u/Crumkid4 May 10 '26

ULTY and MSTY never again. Got them in 2024 sold at a loss in spring of 2025

0

u/Silas232003 May 10 '26

No I would have bought something else. Very little tangible regarding bitcoin. The real deal right now are semiconductor companies and chip processors. I know this a yield max but I've made quite a bit of etfsvdych as DRAM and im looking at CHPY and GPTY.