YMAX Analysis
YieldMax Universe Fund of Option Income ETFs — is the distribution income, or your own capital coming back?
NAV decline exceeded distributions
Over the last 1Y, YMAX distributed 72.2% of its price while NAV fell 43.9%. The decline was larger than everything paid out, so a holder across the full window is down on a total-return basis despite the distributions.
From here, YMAX would need a 78% price gain just to return to where it started the window — before any further distributions are counted.
This verdict is generated from fixed thresholds applied to live price and distribution data, not written per fund. Two funds with the same profile always get the same wording.
How YMAX generates income
YMAX holds the entire universe of YieldMax single-stock ETFs and passes through their distributions. It's the most diversified YieldMax fund — instead of concentrating on the highest-yielding names (like ULTY does), YMAX spreads across all 40+ YieldMax funds, which dilutes both the yield and the risk.
The headline yield is lower than ULTY because the portfolio includes lower-volatility names like MSFO (Microsoft), APLY (Apple), and JPO (JPMorgan) alongside the high-flyers. This diversification means YMAX's NAV tends to be more stable than ULTY's, but the weekly distributions are correspondingly smaller.
ROC on YMAX is typically moderate (20-60%) rather than the near-100% you see on ULTY. This reflects the blended nature of the portfolio — some underlying funds generate genuine option income while others are distributing capital return.
YMAX is the "set and forget" option for investors who want broad YieldMax exposure without having to pick individual funds or worry about any single stock blowing up their income stream.
- Strategy
- Fund-of-funds (all YieldMax single-stock ETFs)
- Distribution
- Weekly (Group 1, Tuesday)
- Expense ratio
- 0.99%
- vs ULTY
- Lower yield, more stable NAV, lower ROC
YMAX price return since first distribution
The capital half of total return. Read it against the cumulative distributions below — the two together are what a holder actually earned.
Cumulative price return: -64.38%
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Cumulative distributions collected
Running total of per-share distributions since the first payment on record — 105 payments.
Total collected per share since inception: $17.76
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