I sold my ULTY holdings. The drop in NAV was not bothering me until it got down in the low $4 range. Bear in mind that anything under $3 will carry a 100% margin requirement, and lose a lot of institutional support. And, the payout which had held at a steady 9 cents/share every week for so long, started going down. YieldMax has said it's a candidate for a reverse split, something they've held back on up till now. So it's tax harvest season and I started selling in batches until they were gone. I do miss the Friday boost to my account balance.
Here's my update on other holdings and what I'm looking to buy next after my wash sale time limit expires.
MSTY has dropped in NAV, too. I don't hold as many shares, and it's in a tax-free account, so whatever income it provides goes to buying more stuff in that account. I'll likely keep these shares to zero, although they've surprised me in the past by bouncing in value. This was truly a buy and forget, primarily because it's in a tax-free account.
TSYY plays options on certain ETFs that use leverage with Tesla, it's not actually leveraged itself. I bought in when it dropped into the $9 range this summer. It's currently in the $6 range and flirting with high $5s on occasion lately before bouncing back up into the $6s. Its current payout has fallen, too, to around 16 cents/week lately. I'm holding, neither adding nor subtracting shares right now. I don't have a whole lot in comparison to what I held of ULTY.
SMCY has probably done the best among my holdings. Its NAV was in the $15-18 range for most of the year. Like the others, it's plummeted since the start of November. It moved to weekly with all other YieldMax products earlier this year and has been paying anywhere from 16-33 cents every week. Holding, but considering adding more since it's down in the $9 range at the moment. We'll see how it's doing next month.
I had the mistaken notion that ULTY would do better holding its bag of different stocks. The single stock focused option ETFs have actually done better, in terms of NAV and keeping their distributions up. This was unexpected and I think it surprised a lot of people. While ULTY was in the $6 range and paying out 9 cents a week per share, it's AUM rose to $3 billion. When the NAV went down to the $5 range a bunch of people left. I think its AUM went down to $2.5 billion that week. Like I said, I stayed until the $4s and 6 cents/week payouts. Maybe they'll recover with the reverse split to something resembling their former glory. Anyway, it highlights the fact that with risky stuff like this, it's not set it and forget it. You've got to keep an eye on things because today's darling can quickly fall out of favor.
After my wash sale time period is up, I'll be on the hunt for something to replace ULTY, so here are some of the ones I'm looking at. First up is YMAX. Right now it's in the $10 range and has been distributing 10-17 cents every week. It is their fund-of-funds and gains income from all their options ETFs. I never bothered with them in the past because ULTY did so much better, but that is no longer the case. YMAX has sort of proven itself. It stayed in the $12-13 range for most of the year, and is still going relatively strong, so it says a lot for them. I'll reconsider buying it in the future.
Specific stocks ETFs that actually hold the underlying are getting a strong second look. Right now I like COIW, a Roundhill product that owns COIN stock and makes calls on it. If you put its chart side-by-side with COIN, it follows pretty closely. So, when COIN goes down, it goes down. But when COIN goes up, it goes up too, as its NAV is directly tied to COIN. This one is a strong contender. We'll see where the price is when my 30 days are up.
YSPY is a GraniteShares product and has held its share price very nicely over the year in the $19-20 range, only recently dipping into the $18 range. Pays out 16-19 cents a week. I like the stability and the price is very nice right now.
The left cannot kill the Spirit of Charlie Kirk.
