Did ULTY's Sky-High Payouts Beat the Market This Past Year?

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YieldMax has a lengthy menu of high-yielding exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF (NYSEARCA:ULTY) is among the most appealing for passive income investors. Yet, inquiring minds will surely want to know whether the ULTY ETF’s cash distributions have historically outperformed the stock market as a whole.

If you’ve tried putting some capital into ULTY, you’ll know that the fund’s dividends/distributions can add up quickly. You must admit, however, that the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF is more volatile than a market-tracking index such as the S&P 500.

Thus, for the ULTY ETF to be worth the volatility risk, investors should expect its distributions to outpace the historical gains of the S&P 500. Today, we’re going to put the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF to the test and determine whether it’s really a market-beating fund for risk-tolerant income collectors.

Amazing Yield From Stocks and Options

As of August 14, 2025, the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF advertised an annual distribution rate of 85.9%. Be aware, though, that this is the currently anticipated 12-month distribution yield; it is subject to change in the future, and it doesn’t reflect what has occurred over the past year.

Another feature of the ULTY ETF is that it pays out its cash distributions to the shareholders on a weekly basis. On the other hand, the the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF automatically deducts annualized operating expenses totaling 1.3% worth of the share price.

How can ULTY possibly deliver such massive yield and pay each and every week? To begin with, the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF invests in shares of some fast-moving stocks. These include Rocket Lab USA (NASDAQ:RKLB), IonQ (NYSE:IONQ), Applovin (NASDAQ:APP), Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), Reddit (NYSE:RDDT), Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) and Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM). The ULTY ETF holds shares of these and other stocks, and also deploys various options-trading strategies based on these stocks.

The strategies include synthetic long exposure to stocks, writing (selling) covered call options and/or credit spreads, selling calendar call spreads, and others. These options-trading strategies enable the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF to generate substantial income; however, writing covered call options can limit ULTY’s share-price upside potential.

Comparing ULTY to the Market

Now, we’ll concentrate on the weekly cash distributions (but not the share-price movements) of the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF. Did those payments, when added up over the past year, outperform the gains of the stock market overall?

To simplify this comparison, we can use the S&P 500 as a proxy for the stock market. Over the past 12 months, as of Aug. 14, the S&P 500 rallied almost exactly 19% (not including dividends).

That’s a strong single-year performance for the S&P 500. Next, I will add up the past 12 months’ worth of cash distributions from the the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF (I did some rounding to the nearest penny to make it easier). Note that the fund switched from monthly distributions to weekly distributions in May of 2025.

Here’s the rundown after I rounded each payout to the nearest penny and added them all up. From Aug. 13, 2024, to Aug. 13, 2025, the ULTY ETF paid out approximately $7.94 per share in distributions.

Next, we should bear in mind that the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF’s share price was roughly $11.56 on Aug. 13, 2024. I figure that if someone bought ULTY at $11.56 a year ago and collected $7.94 in cash distributions over the past 12 months, that would equate to a percentage-wise return of $7.94 divided by $11.56, or 68.7%.

Don’t Disregard the Risks

For what it’s worth, funds that track the S&P 500 often pay slightly more than 1% in dividends. However, even if we add those dividends to the S&P 500’s 19% gains from the past year, this doesn’t even come close to ULTY’s roughly 68.7% worth of distributions.

On the other hand, there’s a downside to the overall profit-and-loss picture with the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF. Because the fund utilizes covered call option strategies, ULTY’s share-price upside potential can often be limited.

In some instances, the ULTY ETF’s share price can decline sharply, especially if the prices of its stock holdings go down. This may help to account for the underperformance of the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF over the past year.

In terms of historical 12-month share-price performance, the ULTY ETF fell 47.14% as of the morning of August 14, 2025. This highlights the inherent risks associated with some of the fund’s options-trading strategies.

Hence, to answer today’s main question, the YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF’s sky-high payouts did beat the market this past year. That said, it’s less clear that ULTY really “beat” the S&P 500 in terms of risk-adjusted returns.

The takeaway: The YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF’s supersized yield comes with share-price risks that shouldn’t be overlooked. At the end of the day, it might make sense to de-risk one’s portfolio by holding a lot more of the S&P 500 than the ULTY ETF.

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