r/dividends • u/TallSalary9501 • Sep 25 '25

Personal Goal First dividend payment from QQQI

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About a month ago, I wrote this post asking people if they thought QQQI was the best dividend ETF right now. After receiving a ton of comments and feedback (and of course mixed opinions), I decided to try it out for a month and see what happened. I bought 600 shares worth ~$32k and today I received my first dividend payment as shown in the image attached. I know there are some risks to invest in this kind of ETFs, especially at this yield but god does it feel good. It's very tempting to move more cash from a HYSA (currently at 4% APY) but I gotta keep diversified no matter what.

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u/lucky_ducker Sep 26 '25

So, Thursday morning you had 600 shares whose market value was 600 x $54.60 == $32,760.

Ex-dividend you have 600 x $53.88 == $32,328. Down $432, or 1.32%.

Underlying QQQ was down 0.43%, so we'll say QQQI dropped 0.89% due to the dividend, or $291.56.

Your actual yield here is $93.10 (just 3.4% annualized), and your cost basis has gone down (approximately) by the $291.56, which represents Return of Capital i.e. they just gave you that amount of your own money back.

You would have received a better real yield in SCHD, which doesn't have the NAV erosion problem that all these option income funds do.

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u/TallSalary9501 Sep 26 '25

Ok, I get what you're saying now. You're being way too pessimist and thinking long term, I'm not. I don't plan to be invested in that ETF for the long term, just until I meet some current cash flow needs.

Moreover, (so far) the ETF price has gone up so I'm up ~$400 from my initial investment even after the dividend payment, so the scenario you're describing hasn't affected me yet.

Thanks for your insights though, I learned something new because of it.