CHPY vs SOXY, Which Semiconductor Income ETF Is the Best?

Ajouté : 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]What if I told you there were two ETFs in the same exact sector, semiconductors, they're giving you two different investing experiences. And the cool part is one is giving you a yield anywhere between that 30 to 45% while the other one's got a one-year price appreciation of about 92%. Now, these two ETFs are a lot of what people are talking about. We have Chippy and we have Socky. Now, we're going to be talking about these, diving deep into how their strategy works. We're going to be seeing like what the cost of each one is, what the price appreciation, the total return, and seeing which one could belong in your portfolio. All right, let's get to it. This video is purely educational content. It should not be considered personal finance advice. I'm not a licensed financial adviser, and I don't know your financial situation, risk tolerance, or even investment goals. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results and always do your own research and consider consulting with a qualified financial professional before making any investment. All right, let's get on to the video. Hey guys, my name is Steve and I run the Frugal Expat website where we try to help you to save more and invest better. Today we are diving into Chippy versus Socky. Which one should you be putting in your portfolio? All right, let's get to it. Let's first talk about these two ETFs. Now, these two ETFs are from YieldMax. And I know what you could be thinking is when you hear the word YMAX, you think these ETFs could be trash. I would say don't assume anything right away. First of all, these two ETFs a little bit different than the other YieldMax ETFs. They actually own the assets under management. These are not synthetics. They sell cover calls.

[00:01:42]And with Socky, it's quite conservative on their yield compared to Chippy. And so these two ETFs, they're in a great volatile market. They have the assets under management and they're pretty consistent with their payouts. And so when we're thinking of YieldMax, we may think that some are trash, some are. We may think that some may not be the ones we want and have NAV erosion. That's true. But these two, both of them have nav appreciation. Both of them have pretty good yields. Both of them have good strategies and they just seem to be the ones that are a little bit different than the other ones. So, let's dive into each one. We're going to talk about and break them down. We're also going to show you guys which one could be the one you are adding to your portfolio. Our first one is Chippy, which is the YieldMax semiconductor portfolio option income ETF. Now, this ETF has about a 1.03% expense ratio, means it costs about $103 for every $10,000 invested. This ETF also has a yield of anywhere between 30 to 45% according to seeking Alpha sitting around 35% according to YMax's website, sitting about 40%. Now, take it as a grain of salt, but what it's doing is it's getting a pretty good yield of that 30 to 45% and it's paying weekly.

[00:03:07]So, you're getting your dividends every single week. Now, with this ETF, you are not going to get the max total return or price appreciation of an SMH or an SOXX.

[00:03:20]Both of those in the one year have done about like 140 150% return. And Chippy on the other hand has done about 116% return. Now if we take a look at the price appreciation, we see that Chippy is lagging behind the price appreciation doing about maybe about 42%. That's not so bad. You're getting some pretty good yield and that's why people go straight for Chippy. It's giving good yield. It's doing weeklyies and you're getting exposure to about 15 to 30 different companies that tracks semiconductors.

[00:03:52]And so that's some good news for you.

[00:03:54]Now the way they're actually making you deal is they're selling some cover calls on these assets. Now a lot of these are going to be a little bit volatile. AMD is up and down. Micron is doing pretty good and so the premiums are just a bit juicier and juicier means more premiums into your pocket. So it should be is a pretty good one that you could buy and hold in your portfolio. Let's get on to our next ETF. Our next ETF is SOXY, which is the YieldMax target 12 semiconductor option income ETF. Now, this ETF has about 15 to 30 different holdings. That's good. The same kind of as Chippy, but the difference is it targets a 12% distribution rate or 12% yield. That means that it's trying to have a 12% yield over the entire year.

[00:04:43]So, some months less, some months more.

[00:04:46]It's using a cover call spread strategy.

[00:04:49]So, it's going to sell some cover calls and they're also going to buy some potential calls if the price is right in order to make some premium and having some upside in case the market kind of skyrockets. And we can see this in kind of the one-year return. The one-year price appreciation of Socky is around 92% with the total return being that 116% like a Chippy. So, this one is a very good one with a 12% yield and a very high price appreciation. Now, it does monthly distributions unlike Chippy which does weekly distributions. They have Simica. So, if you like Simica, this is a good ETF to buy and hold. The only difference between Chippy and Socky is Socky tries to make sure he stays in that 12% range and Chippy has a much higher yield for people and plus Chippy is also doing weeklys versus Socky which is doing monthlys. Now Socky is not a big ETF. It's got about 50 million assets under management. So it's not that big. Chippy on the other hand's got about 450 million in assets under management. So it's a much bigger fund and it's very popular among many income investors today. Now both of these share a some common characteristics. First of all they both have some return of capital. Now not every week or every month for the distributions are going to have return of capital. What I noticed in their form 19A form was that the range ranges anywhere from that zero to 100%. So some months for soy maybe 0% some may be like 90 to 100 and with chippy some weeks could be 0 20 50 100% ROC. So sometimes there will be ROC which means return of capital which means some of your capital's returned back to you. Some weeks and some months there won't be. So that's uh that's pretty consistent with both of these.

[00:06:46]Now they both have that 15 to 30 different semiconductor companies. They also both use treasuries as collateral within their portfolio to help with some of these option strategies and that's good to know. They also both have uh they actually own the assets are management. They both also have some pretty high expense ratios. Chippy is 1.03. Socky is 1.06% and so uh Chippy cost $103 per $10,000 and Socky cost $106 per $10,000. Now, these high expense ratios could be a negative factor. Maybe you guys don't want to choose those, but that's just giving those information. Hey guys, if you like this video, make sure to hit that like button and subscribe. And here on the Frugal Expound, I am offering up some one-on-one coaching. The cool thing is if you are looking for some help in your finances, you're looking for some help in creating portfolios, you're looking for some help on kind of figuring out your road map to financial success, I'm here to help out. I'm going to leave a link in my description and the pin comments where you can sign up for a one-hour session with me, Steve, where we can make a phone call together.

[00:07:53]We can go over. I got questions. I've got workbooks. I even have some income trackers to help you guys out. So, let me know, sign up, and we'll help you to get from point A all the way to point Z.

[00:08:08]All right, let's get back to our video.

[00:08:10]And remember to make sure to hit that like button, subscribe, and let's get back. Now, let's dive into some of the deep numbers, as in the total performance, the price appreciation, and of course, the yield because everybody likes the yield. Now, with the one-year return, Chippy is doing about 42.99% in price appreciation, while Socky is doing about 91.99% in price appreciation. Year-to date, Chippy is doing 24.19% in price appreciation, while Socky is doing about 37% in price appreciation year to date. If we take a one-year return of total return, we see that Chippy is doing about 114% and Socky is doing about 116%. So that's dividends reinvested. And for year to date, Chippy is doing about 41.52% while Sock is doing about 41.43%.

[00:09:03]That's yeartoate total return for both of these. So as we can see that when we take a look at both of these price appreciation, Socky is crushing it. They have about 50% more than Chippy when we're talking about the price. Now, if we look at total return, that's dividends reinvested. We see that they're both quite even. So, that breaks us down to let's take a look at the goods and bads of each ETF to see which one may be the one you want to put in your portfolio. Now, what does Chippy do well? Now, Chippy does well, a lot of different things. First of all, it's got a high yield of 30 to 40%. Pretty good.

[00:09:38]It's got a good total return that matches socks in. pretty good. It does weekly distributions. It does ROC and this one could be a great one to add to your portfolio. Plus also tracks some semiconductors. I like this. Now, some things that you may have concerns of and some risk is maybe the high yield could be a little bit too high and if the semiconductor market were to go down, maybe that yield would come down as well. Or maybe there's navion or maybe you're also capping your upside because you're selling too much of your portfolio on those covered calls. It could also be the fact that there's a concentration risk with that 15 to 30 different companies in this portfolio.

[00:10:14]And with the ROC and the percentages vary, there's no consistency with that.

[00:10:18]That means some of it is going to be taxed at that ordinary rates and some will probably not. And with this high yield, you're just hoping that you continue that the value of this ETF continues to go up in the long run instead of eating into your NAV like some of the other YieldMax ETFs do. Now, let's take a look at Socky. What does Socky do? Well, first of all, it's got a pretty good yield of anywhere between that 9 to 12% targeting 12%. It's got a pretty good price appreciation of 92% in the one-year expand, and that's very good. Um, it tracks a pretty good amount of semicoded companies, 15 to 30. It's got monthly distributions, and so if you want to have um a lower yield and more price appreciation, Socky is a great one. Let's take a look at what it does not so good. Now, with uh with Sony, there's a couple of risks that could go down. Well, first of all is you got a pretty good deal and it's trying to target that 12%. So, you're not going to get much higher, even though maybe you want much higher. Secondly is if premiums and volatility does go down within this market, then um distributions could go down as well.

[00:11:21]There's the fact that it is concentrated in 15 to 30 different companies and maybe you don't want that huge concentration. it does have some varying ROC and so um that's not as consistent as you may see with other ETFs and that's and possibly a high expense ratio as well. So those are some of the bad stock socks. Now the real question is are option ETFs the right tools to own when you're owning some semiconductor ETFs? Now I own personally SMH and I like SMH and the one-year return of SMH it's done about 141%. If you look at an ETF like XOXX, that's around 140 141% as well in the one-year. PSI, which is a momentum factor SIM ETF in the one-year return is 181%. So, if you're looking for just growth, those could be better assets to buy and hold. You can also look at SOXQ as well. Those are some other great ETFs to get exposure to the Simtors. Now, if you're looking for income, of course, Socky gives you a lot of price appreciation and a good target of 12%. This could be a good one to buy and hold. If you're looking for just income and growth, more income and some pretty good growth, Chippy would make more sense. It's got that 30 to 45% in yield, plus it's price appreciation about 42% in the one year. So, you have to take all those kind of things into consideration. You could do like a PSI or SMH with a chippy. You could just go all in on Soxy. Now, those are just different options that you could do.

[00:12:59]Now, here's my take. Which fund wins?

[00:13:02]Now, the clear answer is none of them really do because they are for different types of investors. Now, if you want more yield, Chippy wins. If you want more price appreciation with a little bit yield, Socky wins. Two different ways of doing it. It's like two different ways of skinny a cat. You can do it multiple ways. There's no right way to do it. So, if you're looking for some good weekly, good high yield and exposure to the Simodet, Chippy would be a great ETF to buy and hold. Now, just continue to monitor it and make sure that the Simra market continues to rise up. Now, if you're looking for a little bit more price appreciation and some income, Socky would be the one to go with. Now, of course, look at the risk that I've already explained, but it's got that 12% yield and appreciation pretty high up. So, this could be a good one. If you don't want yield at all, remember there's other semiconductor ETFs out there and those could give you better growth for the long term. Do your own research. Check out these ETFs and let me know in the comments which one is the one you want to buy and hold. Do you want a Chippy? Do you want a Socky? Let me know in the comments. And if there's another one I have probably missed, let me know in the comments as well. And make sure to check out our video on the four best semiconductor ETFs that I made right up here. And I'll see you in our next video.