Is QQQI & SPYI SAFE to Live Off Dividends in Retirement? (2026)

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]This video is for educational andformational purposes only and is not investment, financial, or tax advice. I am not a financial adviser. Please always do your own research. If you're in a bad mood or Garrett's in a bad mood, you guys are making uh trades off the cuff. Does Troy or Garrett run the ETFs at Neos? Like, are they the people running the portfolio? Investors, yes.

[00:00:23]Welcome back to the channel where in this video I'm going to be interviewing Troy Kates, a co-founder and managing partner there at Neos investments where so many of you guys have so much of your own wealth tied into Neos ETFs. Maybe not only just Spy or Triple Qi, maybe even the Boosted Series, maybe even other highquality ETFs by Neos investments. And so many of you guys have been asking, does Troy run all the ETFs? Does Garrett run all the ETFs?

[00:00:47]What happens to my money if it's all managed by just Troy and Garrett and so much more? It's going to be a very fun video because so many of you guys plan on retiring on these NEOS ETFs. So, let's get started.

[00:00:59]>> Thanks for having me. Uh, always look forward to this conversation. So, happy to be back.

[00:01:02]>> I know that Neos has experienced so much rapid growth since you guys launched about 4 years ago. The first question is what is the investment philosophy that Neos not even initially but the first investment philosophy that Neos had when they first launched their ETFs?

[00:01:17]>> So, when we were launching um as you mentioned we launched about 4 years ago.

[00:01:21]So August of 22 is when we launched our first three ETFs. We launched SPYI, CSHI, and BNDI. And the idea behind it was how could we really become a solutions provider when someone's looking for potentially option income um or monthly distribution, they would think of NEOS because we'd have a number of products that might fit their asset allocation. So we launched with those three to kind of be the building blocks whether it was SPYI in the equity side, BNDI on the fixed income, CSHI more in the cash or ultra short duration side and then continue to slice up that asset allocation pie u by bringing out more equity products whether that's international that's more domestic um hedged products now are boosted and levered products more fixed income and now of course alternative. So, we continue to want to just slice up that asset allocation pie. So, you could come to NEOS and say, I'm looking for income.

[00:02:14]I'm looking for it um to to source it from option an options market portfolio, an option based strategy, and I'm looking for it in this sector. I'm looking in equities or maybe specifically international equities or I'm looking for it in Bitcoin or Ethereum. Looking into our products and hopefully finding something that might fit your investment uh you know, profile and what you're looking to do and to meet your goals. Now why those initial three spy, BNDI and CSHI? Correct.

[00:02:41]>> Correct.

[00:02:42]>> So why those three and not you know uh Q QQI initially or like a BTCI you guys have a lineup of now 19 ETFs and more in filing but why those three where you know there's a lot of other ETFs you have chosen from to launch. Yeah, we kind of had a roadmap of how we wanted to bring funds out to market and we continue to have a roadmap of what funds we were looking to hopefully get out to market um at some point. So for us, it kind of was like the early building blocks of a portfolio. S&P 500, a lot of people think about that when they're making their first investment. So that's where we want to start with equities. um you know BNDI is a mix of core aggregate bond ETFs and option income and and that's where a lot of people will go for their core bond exposure and then CSHI thinking those um you know one to threemon T bills is a lot of people will park you know whether they're cash or or more conservative investments in T bills um on the side and so we thought that would be a good place to start really just as the building blocks of a portfolio and then of course the next one we brought out was QQQI buy. So, we wanted to get that NASDAQ 100 product out. Um, but it took over a year and a half before we got our next product out.

[00:03:56]We really spent the first year and a half building up um these three products, talking about them, getting the word out that Neos is now in the ETF space. Uh getting the word out um that Garrett and I are back in the ETF space at the time and really focusing on those three funds and making sure they could support themselves before we started bringing out more funds. A lot of issuers um you know can or will bring out a lot of funds at once and kind of see what sticks against the wall for us.

[00:04:26]We try to be a little um for us, we want to be more thoughtful and bring things out appropriately and in a timely manner that makes sense for us to be able to support that new product and get it off the ground until we move on. Um, you know, and bring out the next product and we know that that one is doing what it, you know, was designed to do. So, it's really building those three those three building blocks and kind of just building upon, you know, from there to get more funds out. Can you reflect on the recent growth of NEOS to over $2 billion in assets and what contributed to that growth because initially I mean I would have never thought you guys would have grown to over $25 billion in assets this fast and it's quite fascinating because now we have investors like myself and investors who watch this channel who own your products but also who are you know looking to hold these products not for just the next couple of years but for maybe even the rest of their lifetime and even passing along their wealth to their children. So, investors want to know like what's the what are your thoughts on this recent growth and just really what contribute to this growth? I think a huge part of it is obviously getting our name out there, letting people know what we're doing. Um, but it's also building products that people can understand and that perform the way they were designed to perform. So I think um most of the time when people are thinking of a covered call product, they're thinking of giving up somewhat of the upside to have um premium and cash come in and in our products that's distributed out. So it's kind of setting the expectations of what we're building whether it's an S&P 500 or a NASDAQ 100 or a Bitcoin product of having that underlying exposure and not really taking a view on that underlying exposure. We're not saying you should buy the S&P or you should buy the NASDAQ 100. We're just saying here's the exposure to that underlying reference asset and here's a way to source um some of the premium off of the volatility of that underlying reference asset and get that distributed out in a monthly basis.

[00:06:25]I think the combination of us the way we have a rules-based strategy that is you know we've talked about this before not covering 100% of the notional and that varies monthtomonth depending on volatility and writing calls out of the money and thinking about the total return versus the underlying reference asset. I think all of that comes into play and as our products are out there more and more and more people hear about them and understand, oh, if I'm invested in a QQQI and I understand what that does, I sort of understand maybe what the gold high income is doing. You're long exposure to gold and then you're using that volatility around the options market of gold to bring in premium and distribute that out. I get what they're trying to do and we've seen more and more people not just buy one fund uh but buy multiple. We talk to adviserss and they might get involved because of a QQQI or an SPYI, but then they're looking and say, "Oh, I see you have a gold product. I have an allocation to gold for my clients. This might make sense." Or my clients are looking for some crypto exposure and BTCI might be the the way to go. Um, so I think it's just being that solutions provider and offering more of those different solutions, more of those ETFs that can fit into most people's asset allocation uh continues probably to to be the growth uh driver for us. Now, throughout many of your videos that you've been on and just like on our channel, which we're super grateful for, is you mentioned stuff like datadriven rules-based strategy with the ETF strategies that you guys offer to investors. Now, it's funny because many investors are have been commenting, does Troy or Garrett run the ETFs at NEO?

[00:08:02]Like, are they the people running the portfolio? And like I said before, you mentioned datadriven rules-based strategies with the uh ETFs you guys offer to investors. Now, can you touch more on that? And also like more about the team behind the scenes at NEO like running these ETFs because a lot of people when they invest in ETFs, like even myself when I first started, um I would say I'm bit more experienced now.

[00:08:26]We invest in like a a huge trillion dollar uh brokerage that al also offers ETFs. So, we feel really safe knowing that our investments are going to be safe in the next 30, 40, 50 years, but with a quote unquote smaller shop at $25 billion in assets, you know, people want to know like the the team behind it. Is it just you and Garrett running the ETFs? And just more about the structure of it.

[00:08:49]>> Well, I could start there. It is not just Garrett and me running the ETFs in the background. We have a very experienced uh team and bench of traders that help us manage it. Um we have an a head of investment strategy. We have product development. We have a whole team that is looking at these products not only from um building them and bringing them out to the market but also managing them and going forward. And we talk about the data that we use to build these products. Um and then we talk about the rules we build around that. So um there's not a day that h it happens where Garrett or me go come in and say you know take discretion and say let's close these calls or let's do this or that. We follow our rules every day, day in day out. So, we built these rules for a few reasons. One, to take away that keyman risk that you're talking about.

[00:09:37]If Garrett and I couldn't make it in one day or weren't here and the funds had to roll all the options, the trading team knows what to do. Our head of investment strategy knows what to do. Our product development people know what to do. So, it takes away that key risk, but it also what it does when you have rules around a strategy, it takes the emotion out of it. And if you can pull the emotion out of your portfolio management, we've seen that you could potentially have better returns down the road if you're not acting on emotion on every time there's um a geopolitical event, there's a tweet that goes out or there's some news out of the Fed, if you're taking away that emotional reaction to what's going on in the market and you're following your rules and what your data told you and how you built the rules, um we find that you could potentially have better outcomes. And for us, it's really important. So that's where the rules-based strategy comes in. Um, but yes, it's not Garrett and me sitting here pulling all the levers and and hitting the keyboards on every trade. We have a very experienced team. We have uh three traders sitting here that all have 25 plus years experience trading all types of products, obviously very knowledgeable in the op uh option space.

[00:10:46]So it's all about the team here. Um, as a firm, we're about 34 people now. Yes, still small compared to the trillion dollar managers you were mentioning earlier, but there is a team here. There is a process. Um, and for us, it's important to follow that process and and you know, work as a team. So, in terms of discretion, just to make it clear to investors, if you're in a bad mood or Garrett's in a bad mood, you guys aren't making uh trades off the cuff where I know some other cover call issuers, they, you know, we can see on X. They're like, oh, let's see what this issuer did today on this trade or this is interesting trade that they did or maybe it's based off of feel. And so, you guys don't do that. And you guys will always follow follow your data driven rulesbased strategy. Is that correct?

[00:11:32]>> Correct. there's no discretion taken by us. So, uh we take that off the table.

[00:11:37]We follow our rules-based strategy and that's how our team knows how the products work. And for us, it makes a lot of sense, like I said, taking that emotion um out of the problem solving of how to manage a portfolio, taking away that key man risk. It's really important for us um to just follow those rules and continue to build products that have rules around them. Now, as the Neo's product lineup has grown, has the datadriven approach utilized by the first products, right, the CSHI, BNDI, and SPYI, has that also followed throughout the rest of the lineup from beginning four years ago up until now? So yes um some of the products like thinking about spy the rules we built around that being long equities and selling index options those are very similar rules that are in QQQI very similar rules that are in IWMI and so forth. Um but when you're thinking about what factors go into that those rules it's looking at volatility the volatility of the S&P 500 is very different than the NASDAQ or Russell 2000. Um, so it's looking at different data points to give you different outcomes for how far out of the money the calls are, how much of the notional is covered. Um, but the rules are very similar across the product suite. And then on the fixed income side, you'll notice all of our fixed income products uh roll on a weekly basis versus a monthly basis for the other products. So those have their own set of rules and what we're following there. So on a weekly basis, we're looking at those rules and following those rules to roll those products. And on a monthly, we're looking at all the other funds.

[00:13:13]>> Now, in terms of building out your ETF lineup, I mean, it's apparent that the two largest products are going to be SPY and QQQI, which I think account for 20 plus billion dollars of the whole NEOS lineup. Am I correct?

[00:13:26]>> Um, yeah, just about there. Just a little over 20. Yeah.

[00:13:29]>> How do you think about building out the rest of the lineup? Because many investors might be thinking, oh, like why does NEOS file for this ETF? Why didn't they file for semiconductor ETF?

[00:13:39]Why didn't they file for a memory ETF or, you know, and you guys filed for silver income ETF? So, how do you guys think about like building out the entire lineup? I think it's very fascinating when ETF issuers build out a lineup because, you know, you want to have like diversification in your portfolio. Like for example, if you're a Bitcoin issuer, like it should probably a good idea to have maybe some gold exposure, not just be like a Bitcoin shop because if Bitcoin underperforms, then all your ETFs will underperform. So how do you guys think about building out an entire ETF lineup and not just having it the sole focus beyond Spy and Triple Qi?

[00:14:13]>> So you think about it, it comes back to being that solutions provider. So we had this road map of getting these early products out mainly because most people when they think of investing they start with the S&P they start with the NASDAQ they start with ultra short duration and T bills. So we wanted those early building blocks out so those could continue to build while we're getting all the other funds out now that we're bringing out more and more funds. You know, while yes, on a daily basis if we have inflows, we're probably seeing more of a line share go to the S&P or NASDAQ, but that's really just because that's where most people allocate their money, it's not so much that the other funds aren't getting that much attention.

[00:14:51]We're still seeing a lot of flows into the other funds, just not on the same scale because of time. They haven't been out as long. Um, or really think about people that most people don't allocate as much maybe to gold, as you mentioned, that they would to the S&P 500. Some people might, but the option's there for them if they want to, but most people probably allocate a little bit more to being long equities in the S&P or NASDAQ versus a Bitcoin position or a gold or an Ethereum position.

[00:15:19]>> Now, what are three words to describe the growth of NEOCTFs since you guys launched four years ago up until now?

[00:15:27]>> Um, I'd say for the team, it's been, you know, it's been an exciting time for us.

[00:15:32]It's been exciting. It's been um you know part of the Neoen next evolution.

[00:15:38]It's been an evolution of thinking about products that weren't out there or maybe were out there but were not done to how we think they should be built and we brought products out that made a lot of sense for investors. Um, so for the team it's been it's been really exciting um to watch this this firm grow, not only from like an AUM standpoint, but from a people standpoint, having um an office filled with people on a daily basis and and being able to do um different events with the team. um you know whether it's we win an award and we get to go to a little bit you know industry award show with with members of the team that put a lot of their effort into either the marketing or the distribution and uh talking to advisers on a daily basis or the trading team. It's exciting to have that part of it too. So for us it's been um something that Garrett and I have wanted to do for a long time was build a firm again which we started 4 years ago and of course to get it to this scale quickly um has obviously been tremendous for us. Uh but it's very very exciting and I think for everybody you know I speak for myself but for most people that work here I think they come in every day and they're they want to see what's going on in the market. They want to continue to hear about our new products. They want to make sure they're up to date on, you know, as you mentioned, we filed two more funds. We filed a silver and we filed a a Russell 2000 boosted. Um, they want to understand that so when um the the funds go live in a couple of months, they're ready to talk about it with their clients or they're ready to put that marketing piece out there or or something else. So for us, it's continually, you know, bringing out innovative products, bringing them out in a timely manner, and continuing to kind of grow our different solutions that we're offering. Now, if you guys like this video, please give it a like because this Q puppy did. And don't forget to check out our last interview and we will see you guys all on the next one. This video is for educational andformational purposes only and is not investment, financial, or tax advice. I am not a financial adviser. Please always do your own research.