What If You Had Invested in QYLD 10 Years Ago?

QYLD: all at once or every month?

Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 2013 (144 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 113 (78%). Because QYLD gives up its big up-months, it tends to grind rather than jump, which favors getting money in early. Monthly buying won mostly for starts just before the falls of late 2018 and 2022. The best case for monthly investing was a start in March 2022, when it finished the year 15% ahead.

Worst drop

QYLD's worst fall in this history was -22.7%, milder than the worst falls of most stock funds, from December 2021 to September 2022. Getting back to the old high took until January 2024: 16 months from the bottom and 2.1 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $773 at the low.

The 2022 tech sell-off. QYLD fell less than QQQ because the option income cushioned the decline, but it needed until early 2024 to recover, because the calls it kept selling capped the 2023 rebound.

QYLD is built for income today, not growth. Since its launch QQQ has grown several times as much with everything reinvested.

QYLD dividends

QYLD paid $2.14 per share over the last 12 months, in monthly payments. At $17.11 that is 12.52%, a high yield, so a large part of the return arrives as cash. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout shrank 4.3% a year. The yearly total fell in 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2025. Fund payouts move around with what the holdings pay, so a lower year is not a cut in the usual sense.

Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.

QYLD dividend history: last 12 payments

How much QYLD do you need for $1,000 a month?

About $95,810, or roughly 5,600 shares at $17.11. That uses QYLD's last 12 months of dividends ($2.14 a share, a 12.52% yield) and is before tax.

QYLD pays every month and the amounts have been fairly steady, so the income really does arrive monthly.

The payout shrank 4.3% a year over the last five years, so the same holding pays less each year, before inflation is even counted.

Check the price too. Not counting dividends, QYLD went from $22.19 at the end of 2021 to $17.11 today (-22.9%). So part of what the dividends paid was given back in the share price.

Very little of QYLD's payout is qualified dividends. Most comes from selling options, and in many years a large share has been labeled return of capital, which lowers your cost basis instead. The mix changes every year, so check Global X's annual tax report, or hold it in an IRA where it does not matter.

Want to build toward it with monthly buys? Try the dividend calculator with QYLD's numbers filled in.

About QYLD

Fund details as of 2025. Check the issuer for the current expense ratio and holdings.

QYLD owns the Nasdaq-100 and every month sells a call option on the whole index at about the current price. The buyer of that option pays QYLD cash up front, and QYLD hands most of it out as a monthly distribution. That is where its double-digit yield comes from.

The price of that income is the upside. Because the calls are sold at the current level, any gain in the index above it that month goes to the option buyer, while QYLD takes almost all of any fall, softened only by the option cash. Over time that lopsided trade has worn the share price down from about $25.50 at the end of 2013 to the high teens.

The returns on this page assume every distribution was reinvested. Someone who spent the payouts instead saw the value of their shares shrink, which is what the price-only TradingView chart above shows.

The yield trap

A double-digit yield sounds like a paycheck that never shrinks, but QYLD's share price has drifted down in most years while it paid that income. If you spend every distribution, you are living partly on the fund's shrinking value. If you reinvest them all, the result has been far behind simply owning QQQ. The fund makes sense mainly for someone who wants maximum income now and accepts little growth.

QYLD, JEPQ or QQQ?

All three are built on the Nasdaq-100. QQQ keeps all of the upside and pays almost nothing. JEPQ, launched in 2022, sells calls on only part of its portfolio and above the current price, so it keeps more of a rally. QYLD sells calls on the whole index at the current price, so it pays the most and keeps the least of the gains.

Questions about QYLD

Did QYLD beat the S&P 500?

No. Over the last 10 years it trailed by 5.6 percentage points a year: +9.0% a year for QYLD against +14.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. Its worst fall was about the same as SPY's.

Is QYLD's distribution a return of capital?

Often a large part of it is. Global X reports the tax character of each year's payments, and in many years much of QYLD's payout has been classified as return of capital rather than income. That lowers your cost basis instead of being taxed right away, but it also means some of the 'yield' is your own money coming back.