SPYI review: total return vs SPY, JEPI and XYLD, measured

What SPYI is

SPYI is the NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF. It holds the S&P 500 stocks and sells call options on the S&P 500 index against them, at times buying further-out calls so it keeps part of a rally, and pays the premium out monthly. It is the S&P 500 sibling of QQQI and launched at the end of August 2022. The fund's own page has the current expense ratio and its tax notes on index options and return of capital.

Payout versus total return

Over the last twelve months SPYI paid out about 12.1% of its price. Since its first close on August 30, 2022 its share price rose about 1.6% a year, so nearly all of the return arrived as distributions. Counting those reinvested, SPYI returned about 14.2% a year against SPY's 18.0% on the same days. It kept a little under 80% of the index's return over a window when the index mostly rose.

Year by year

2022 from launch: -2.4% against SPY -3.1%. 2023: +16.9% against +26.2%. 2024: +19.0% against +24.9%. 2025: +16.7% against +17.7%. 2026 to mid November: +10.4% against +11.5%. It trailed SPY in every full year, by one to ten points, most in the strong 2023 rebound when the calls it sold gave the rally away.

Drawdowns

Its worst drawdown since launch is -16.5% against -18.8% for SPY, set in the February to April 2025 sell-off. On monthly returns it caught about 75% of SPY's up months and about 70% of its down months, so the cushion in a fall was roughly the size of the give-up in a rise.

JEPI, the other large S&P 500 income fund, cushioned much more: -13.3% in the same sell-off and -3.5% in calendar 2022 against SPY's -18.2%, at the price of catching only about 60% of SPY's up months. Our JEPI vs JEPQ guide has its full record.

SPYI vs QQQI

On the shared window from January 30, 2024, SPYI returned about 15.5% a year with a worst drawdown of -16.5%; QQQI returned about 16.2% a year with a worst drawdown of -20.0%. QQQI pays out more, about 15% of its price against 12%, because Nasdaq options are priced for bigger moves. The choice between them is mostly the choice between the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100, with the same covered call haircut on each.

The long run, from an older fund

SPYI has about four years of history. XYLD, which sells at-the-money calls on the S&P 500 every month, has more than ten: from 2016 it returned about 8.4% a year against SPY's 14.9%, with its share price roughly flat while it paid out. In 2020 it returned -0.6% while SPY returned +18.3%. SPYI sells further out of the money and keeps more upside by design, so its long-run gap should be smaller than XYLD's, but there is no long record yet to measure it.

Is SPYI a good investment?

That depends on what the money is for, and this is a description of the record, not advice. It has done what it says: a large monthly payout, a little less of the S&P 500's falls and a little less of its rises. For money being reinvested for decades, the record says you gave up about four points a year of total return in a rising market for income you then bought shares back with. Compare total return over the same days, never the yield, and see our covered call ETFs vs selling puts guide for running the same trade yourself.

How we measured

Daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance through the November 11, 2026 close. Total return reinvests each distribution on its ex-date, compared with the index ETF on exactly the same days from the fund's first close. No taxes or trading costs, and past returns do not predict future ones.