Given the recent volatility in the stock market, I wanted to highlight an ETF that continues to offer stability to my own portfolio — as well as countless others to the tune of $6 billion in assets under management.

We also hosted Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella on a recent episode of the Rich Habits Podcast to talk all things volatility, market uncertainty, and how to hedge your portfolio using their suite of ETFs.

Episode 144: How to Profit From Market Uncertainty

I was right — the NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF (SPYI) was indeed superior to the JPMorgan Equity Premium ETF (JEPI). Two and a half years ago I published this analysis — claiming that SPYI was superior to JEPI citing two main attributes:

The comment section was full of negative feedback with concerns about their “low” trading volume, assets under management sitting below $100 million, and a “high” management fee.

Now two and a half years later, nearly 2 million shares of SPYI trade daily, their assets under management have ballooned to over $6 billion, and their management fee continues to seem justified when taking into account the fund’s outperformance.

In this article, I’m going to share with you comparative performance between SPYI and JEPI since that article was published, as well as explain to you why I believe SPYI remains superior today.

The S&P 500 (SPYI and JEPI’s benchmark index) outperformed in 2023, delivering a +26% total return to investors. This outperformance was very concentrated — with seven mega cap technology names leading the markets higher as investors realized they’ll likely be the ones to benefit most from the rise of AI.

Lucky for both SPYI and JEPI the way their covered call option contracts are written (slightly out of the money) these funds were able to participate in upside appreciation as the S&P 500 drifted higher. SPYI delivered a total return of 18.13%, while JEPI only delivered 9.81%.

What caused the near 10% discrepancy?

Their holdings.

While SPYI holds all 500 constituents of the S&P 500, JEPI holds names their advisers believe are “attractive” and then “considers selling them when they appear less attractive.” With SPYI you have a fund whose job is to replicate the S&P 500 and capture a portion of its long-term positive performance, and with JEPI you have a fund whose advisers use a black box investing strategy to figure out what names to add and subtract based on their “attractiveness.”

Additionally, SPYI’s distribution yield ended the year at 12.45%, whereas JEPI’s ended the year at 8.48%. And remember, what you get isn’t always what you keep.

JEPI utilizes equity-linked notes to generate their income, which means their monthly distributions are taxed as ordinary income. On the other hand, SPYI uses Section 1256 contracts and return of capital — dramatically lowering someone's tax liability in comparison to ordinary income taxes.

Not only was JEPI’s distribution yield lower and less tax-efficient, but their monthly distributions were all over the place.

For example, during the final month of 2023 JEPI investors experienced a -30% month-over-month decline per share ($0.43 to $0.30). Not a good look, especially if you depend on JEPI for your monthly income in retirement. On the flip side, SPYI’s largest month-over-month decline was -4% per share ($0.49 to $0.47).

AI continued to dominate, inflation continued to cool, and we had a crazy rally to end the year in response to Donald Trump being re-elected as President. The S&P 500 ended the year up +25%.

How did our income-focused funds perform?

SPYI delivered a total return of 19.04%, whereas JEPI delivered a total return of 12.58%. Again, this outperformance was due to actually holding the underlying constituents of the S&P 500 and not trying to pick stocks that might seem more or less “attractive.” SPYI’s distribution yield ended the year at 12.84%, whereas JEPI’s was 7.70%.

Looking at their distribution consistency, SPYI’s worst month-over-month decline was -2% ($0.50 to $0.49). JEPI’s worst month-over-month decline was -12% ($0.33 to $0.29), but from June to August their monthly distribution declined -19% per share ($0.36 to $0.29). Double digit percentage variations in monthly distributions is not ideal — especially when you’re paying higher taxes on those distributions.

Despite some Q2 volatility, the S&P 500 is up +17.1% at time of writing (12/2/25) — led higher by mega cap tech and the continuation of AI. Let’s check in on how our income-focused funds have performed year-to-date.

SPYI has delivered a 15.4% total return for their investors, where JEPI has only returned 7.2% — yikes! That’s an 8% discrepancy. Again, it turns out just holding the constituents of the S&P 500 outperforms a few advisers’ “stock picks” in a bull market.

The year isn’t over yet, so I can’t give you their year-end distribution yield — but SPYI’s is shaping up to be north of 12% whereas JEPI’s will come in around 7.5%.

Year-to-date, we’ve seen some wild swings in distribution sizes from JEPI with a -26% decline ($0.54 to $0.40) between June and July. The “Trump Tariff Tantrum” that took place in April also caused SPYI to experience their first double-digit percentage month-over-month distribution decline coming in -10% lower between the months of March and April ($0.51 to $0.46).

SPYI has since fully recovered ($0.53 paid per share in October), whereas JEPI’s monthly distributions are still down -35% when compared to their June peak ($0.54 to $0.35).

If you’re an income-focused investor, you should primarily care about four things: distribution consistency, distribution yield, taxes, and capital appreciation.

Ultimately, SPYI satisfies the four pillars of income investing. That’s why, in my opinion, it stands out as a strong buy in 2026 and beyond.

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or a recommendation for any investment. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Disclosure: The author of this post has an existing business relationship with NEOS Investment Management, LLC, and is also a holder of numerous NEOS ETFs. The thoughts and opinions in this written piece are solely those of the author. The author, publisher or insiders of the publisher may currently have long or short positions in the securities of the companies mentioned herein, or may have such a position in the future (and therefore may profit from fluctuations in the trading price of the securities). To the extent such persons do have such positions, there is no guarantee that such persons will maintain such positions.