YieldMax™ AAPL Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ ABNB Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ ADBE Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ AI Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ AMD Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ AMZN Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ BA Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ BIIB Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ BRK.B Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ COIN Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ DIS Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ GOOGL Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ INTC Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ JPM Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ META Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ MRNA Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ MSFT Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ NFLX Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ NKE Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ ORCL Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ PYPL Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ ROKU Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ SNOW Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ SQ Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ TGT Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ TSLA Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ XOM Option Income Strategy ETF (
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YieldMax™ ZM Option Income Strategy ETF (
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listed on NYSE Arca, Inc.
PROSPECTUS
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has not approved or disapproved of these securities or passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this Prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY INFORMATION
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years | 10 Years |
$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
The
Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells
securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may
indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are
held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual
fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s
performance. For the fiscal period April 17, 2023 (commencement of operations)
to October 31, 2023, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Apple Inc. (“AAPL”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to AAPL regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of AAPL, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive gains when the value of AAPL increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of AAPL, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
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● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of AAPL. |
For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of AAPL Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by AAPL. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of AAPL. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in AAPL’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in AAPL.
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if AAPL shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if AAPL shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in AAPL. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any AAPL dividends. |
Additional information regarding AAPL is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of AAPL Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of AAPL.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of AAPL) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of AAPL, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of AAPL on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to AAPL, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of AAPL’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where AAPL call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to AAPL, the Fund will buy AAPL call options and, simultaneously, sell AAPL put options to try to replicate the price movements of AAPL. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of AAPL at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of AAPL for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on AAPL to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own AAPL, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of AAPL, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current AAPL share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the AAPL call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in AAPL’s stock price. If the stock price of AAPL increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if AAPL’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to AAPL and the sold (short) AAPL call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the AAPL stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AAPL through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on AAPL as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the option buyer pays to the option seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in AAPL stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs AAPL
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of AAPL’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of AAPL, changes in the value of the AAPL options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ AAPL Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio Holdings (All options are based on the value of AAPL) |
Investment Terms | Expected Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AAPL at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of AAPL.
If the AAPL share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AAPL at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by AAPL. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts |
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of AAPL at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the AAPL share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to AAPL equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearable and accessories, and sells a variety of related services. Apple Inc. is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (“Nasdaq”). The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting stock held by non-affiliates of Apple Inc., as of March 31, 2023, the last business day of Apple Inc.’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $2.6 trillion.
Apple Inc. is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by Apple Inc. pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 001-36743 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding Apple Inc. may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to AAPL or other securities of Apple Inc. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding Apple Inc. from the publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to Apple Inc. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding Apple Inc. is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of Apple Inc. (and therefore the price of Apple Inc. at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning Apple Inc. could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of AAPL.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH APPLE INC.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to AAPL. As of the date of the Prospectus, AAPL is assigned to the computer manufacturing industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
AAPL Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of AAPL. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of AAPL, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of AAPL, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in AAPL Risk. Apple Inc. is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence management of Apple Inc. but will be exposed to the performance of AAPL (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
AAPL Trading Risk. The trading price of AAPL may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of AAPL may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of Apple Inc., further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of Apple Inc. may additionally impact AAPL’s stock price due to Apple Inc. garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against Apple Inc. in the past. While Apple Inc. continues to defend such actions, any judgment against Apple Inc., or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of Apple Inc.’s attention and resources. If AAPL trading is halted, trading in Shares of the Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
Apple Inc. Performance Risk. Apple Inc. may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of AAPL to decline. Apple Inc. provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance Apple Inc. provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If Apple Inc.’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by Apple Inc. could decline significantly.
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Technology Industry Risk. The technology industry, including, in some instances, Apple Inc., is subject to intense media, political and regulatory scrutiny, which may expose Apple Inc. to increasing regulation, government investigations, legal actions and penalties.
From time to time, Apple Inc. has made changes to its App Store, including actions taken in response to competition, market and legal conditions. Apple Inc. may make further business changes in the future. New legislative initiatives, such as the proposed EU Digital Markets Act, could, if enacted, require further changes. These changes could include how and to what extent Apple Inc. charges developers for access to its platforms and manages distribution of apps outside of the App Store.
Apple Inc. is also currently subject to antitrust investigations in various jurisdictions around the world, which can result in legal proceedings and claims against Apple Inc. that could, individually or in the aggregate, have a materially adverse impact on Apple Inc.’s business, results of operations and financial condition. For example, Apple Inc. is the subject of investigations in Europe and other jurisdictions relating to App Store terms and conditions. If such investigations result in adverse findings against Apple Inc., it could be exposed to significant fines and may be required to make changes to its App Store business, all of which could materially adversely affect Apple Inc.’s business, results of operations and financial condition. Apple Inc. is also subject to litigation relating to the App Store, which has resulted in changes to Apple Inc.’s business practices, and may in the future result in further changes.
Further, Apple Inc. has commercial relationships with other companies in the technology industry that are or may become subject to investigations and litigation that, if resolved against those other companies, could adversely affect Apple Inc.’s commercial relationships with those business partners and materially adversely affect Apple Inc.’s business, results of operations and financial condition. For example, Apple Inc. earns revenue from licensing arrangements with other companies to offer their search services on Apple Inc.’s platforms and apps, and certain of these arrangements are currently subject to government investigations and legal proceedings.
There can be no assurance Apple Inc.’s business will not be materially adversely affected, individually or in the aggregate, by the outcomes of such investigations, litigation or changes to laws and regulations in the future. Changes to Apple Inc.’s business practices to comply with new laws and regulations or in connection with other legal proceedings could negatively impact the reputation of Apple Inc.’s products for privacy and security and otherwise adversely affect the experience for users of Apple Inc.’s products and services, and result in harm to Apple Inc.’s reputation, loss of competitive advantage, poor market acceptance, reduced demand for products and services, and lost sales.
Global Events Risk. Apple Inc.’s business can be impacted by political events, trade and other international disputes, war, terrorism, natural disasters, public health issues, industrial accidents and other business interruptions. Political events, trade and other international disputes, war, terrorism, natural disasters, public health issues, industrial accidents and other business interruptions can harm or disrupt international commerce and the global economy, and could have a material adverse effect on Apple Inc. and its customers, suppliers, contract manufacturers, logistics providers, distributors, cellular network carriers and other channel partners.
Apple Inc. has a large, global business with sales outside the U.S. representing a majority of Apple Inc.’s total net sales, and Apple Inc. believes that it generally benefits from growth in international trade. Substantially all of Apple Inc.’s manufacturing is performed in whole or in part by outsourcing partners located primarily in Asia, including China mainland, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. Trade policies and disputes and other international conflicts can result in tariffs, sanctions and other measures that restrict international trade, and can materially adversely affect Apple Inc.’s business, particularly if these measures occur in regions where Apple Inc. derives a significant portion of its revenues and/or has significant supply chain operations. For example, tensions between the U.S. and China have led to a series of tariffs being imposed by the U.S. on imports from China mainland, as well as other business restrictions. Tariffs increase the cost of Apple Inc.’s products and the components and raw materials that go into making them. These increased costs can adversely impact the gross margin that Apple Inc. earns on its products. Tariffs can also make Apple Inc.’s products more expensive for customers, which could make Apple Inc.’s products less competitive and reduce consumer demand. Countries may also adopt other measures, such as controls on imports or exports of goods, technology or data, that could adversely impact Apple Inc.’s operations and supply chain and limit Apple Inc.’s ability to offer its products and services as designed. These measures can require Apple Inc. to take various actions, including changing suppliers, restructuring business relationships, and ceasing to offer third-party applications on its platforms. Changing Apple Inc.’s operations in accordance with new or changed trade restrictions can be expensive, time-consuming and disruptive to Apple Inc.’s operations. Such restrictions can be announced with little or no advance notice and Apple Inc. may not be able to effectively mitigate all adverse impacts from such measures. If disputes and conflicts further escalate in the future, actions by governments in response could be significantly more severe and restrictive and could materially adversely affect Apple Inc.’s business. Political uncertainty surrounding trade and other international disputes could also have a negative effect on consumer confidence and spending, which could adversely affect Apple Inc.’s business.
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Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of AAPL and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of AAPL. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AAPL through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by AAPL over the Call Period. This means that if AAPL experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform AAPL over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by AAPL over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by AAPL over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of AAPL. The degree of participation in AAPL gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of AAPL, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of AAPL and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of AAPL changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of AAPL. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the AAPL will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by AAPL.
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Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of AAPL and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AAPL will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of AAPL, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the AAPL share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period AAPL had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AAPL and its returns will depend not only on the price of AAPL but also on the path that AAPL takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as AAPL’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
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High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with AAPL. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
Newer Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with limited operating history. As a result, prospective investors have a limited track record or history on which to base their investment decisions. There can be no assurance that the Fund will maintain an economically viable size.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (AAPL), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
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Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser. ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
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Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses(2) | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) | ||||
(2) | ||||
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s performance. Because the Fund has not commenced operations as of the date of this Prospectus, portfolio turnover information is not yet available.
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Airbnb, Inc. (“ABNB”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to ABNB regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of ABNB, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive gains when the value of ABNB increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of ABNB, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of ABNB. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of ABNB Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by ABNB. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of ABNB. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in ABNB’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in ABNB
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if ABNB shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if ABNB shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in ABNB. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any ABNB dividends. |
Additional information regarding ABNB is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of ABNB Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of ABNB.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of ABNB) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of ABNB, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of ABNB on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● |
A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to ABNB, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of ABNB’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where ABNB call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
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● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to ABNB, the Fund will buy ABNB call options and, simultaneously, sell ABNB put options to try to replicate the price movements of ABNB. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of ABNB at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of ABNB for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on ABNB to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own ABNB, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of ABNB, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current ABNB share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the ABNB call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in ABNB’s stock price. If the stock price of ABNB increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if ABNB’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to ABNB and the sold (short) ABNB call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the ABNB stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to ABNB through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on ABNB as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the option buyer pays to the option seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in ABNB stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs ABNB
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of ABNB’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of ABNB, changes in the value of the ABNB options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ ABNB Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio
Holdings (All options are based on the value of ABNB) |
Investment Terms | Expected Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of ABNB at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of ABNB.
If the ABNB share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of ABNB at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by ABNB. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts |
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of ABNB at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the ABNB share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to ABNB equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Airbnb, Inc. (“ABNB”)
ABNB provides an online marketplace for short- and long-term homestays and experiences. ABNB is listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market. Per ABNB’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of the Class A common stock, as of June 30, 2023, held by non-affiliates of ABNB was approximately $52.8 billion.
ABNB is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by ABNB pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 001-39778 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding ABNB may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to ABNB or other securities of ABNB. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding ABNB from the publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to ABNB. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding ABNB is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of ABNB (and therefore the price of ABNB at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning ABNB could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of ABNB.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ABNB.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industries as that assigned to ABNB. As of the date of the Prospectus, ABNB is assigned to the hotels and resorts industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
ABNB Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of ABNB. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of ABNB, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of ABNB, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in ABNB Risk. ABNB is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence management of ABNB but will be exposed to the performance of ABNB (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
ABNB Trading Risk. The trading price of ABNB may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of ABNB may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of ABNB, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of ABNB may additionally impact ABNB’s stock price due to ABNB garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against ABNB in the past. While ABNB continues to defend such actions, any judgment against ABNB, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of ABNB’s attention and resources. If ABNB trading is halted, trading in Shares of the ABNB Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
ABNB Performance Risk. ABNB may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of ABNB to decline. ABNB provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance ABNB provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If ABNB’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by ABNB could decline significantly.
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Travel Industry Risk. Companies in the travel industry may be adversely affected by a downturn in economic conditions that can result in decreased demand for leisure and business travel. Due to the discretionary nature of business and leisure travel spending, travel company revenues are heavily influenced by the condition of the U.S. and foreign economies. Travel companies may also be significantly affected by changes in labor relations and insurance costs. Lodging industry companies, in particular, are subject to various risks that may cause significant losses, which includes risks related to uncertainty in travel (due to global, regional or local events), guest safety, security, and privacy, changing consumer demands, consumer perception of risk (for example, due to terrorist attacks, pandemics, and political or social violence), and changing or increased regulations.
Beginning in the first quarter of 2020, financial markets in the United States and around the world experienced extreme and in many cases unprecedented volatility and severe losses due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, a novel coronavirus. The pandemic has resulted in a wide range of social and economic disruptions, including closed borders and reduced or prohibited domestic or international travel. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers, including travel companies, have experienced particularly large losses. Such disruptions may continue for an extended period of time or reoccur in the future to a similar or greater extent.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of ABNB and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests is substantially influenced by the value of ABNB. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to ABNB through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
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Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by ABNB over the Call Period. This means that if ABNB experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform ABNB over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by ABNB over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by ABNB over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of ABNB. The degree of participation in ABNB gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of ABNB, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of ABNB and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of ABNB changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of ABNB. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the ABNB will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by ABNB.
Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of ABNB and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of ABNB will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of ABNB, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the ABNB share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period ABNB had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of ABNB and its returns will depend not only on the price of ABNB but also on the path that ABNB takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
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Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as ABNB’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with ABNB. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
New Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with no operating history. As a result, prospective investors do not have a track record or history on which to base their investment decisions.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
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Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (ABNB), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser: ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
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Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | % | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | ||
Other Expenses(2) | % | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses | % |
(1) | ||
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s performance. Because the Fund has not commenced operations as of the date of this prospectus, portfolio turnover information is not yet available.
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Adobe Inc. (“ADBE”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to ADBE regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of ADBE, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive additional income when the value of ADBE increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of ADBE, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of ADBE. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of ADBE Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by ADBE. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of ADBE. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in ADBE’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in ADBE
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if ADBE shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if ADBE shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in ADBE. | |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any ADBE dividends. |
Additional information regarding ADBE is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of ADBE Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of ADBE.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of ADBE) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of ADBE, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of ADBE on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to ADBE, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of ADBE’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where ADBE call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to ADBE, the Fund will buy ADBE call options and, simultaneously, sell ADBE put options to try to replicate the price movements of ADBE. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of ADBE at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of ADBE for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on ADBE to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own ADBE, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of ADBE, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current ADBE share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the ADBE call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in ADBE’s stock price. If the stock price of ADBE increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if ADBE’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to ADBE and the sold (short) ADBE call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the ADBE stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to ADBE through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on ADBE as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the buyer pays to the seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in ADBE stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs ADBE
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of ADBE’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of ADBE, changes in the value of the ADBE options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ ADBE Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio
Holdings (All options are based on the value of ADBE) |
Investment Terms | Expected
Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of ADBE at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of ADBE.
If the ADBE share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of ADBE at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by ADBE. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts
|
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of ADBE at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the ADBE share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to ADBE equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Adobe Inc. (“ADBE”)
ADBE is a diversified software company, which offers a line of products and services for, among other things, creating, managing, and delivering content. ADBE is listed on NASDAQ. Per ADBE’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of common equity, as of June 2, 2023, held by non-affiliates of ADBE was approximately $165 billion.
ADBE is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by ADBE pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 0-15175 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding ADBE may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to ADBE or other securities of ADBE. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding ADBE from publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to ADBE. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding ADBE is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of ADBE (and therefore the price of ADBE at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning ADBE could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of ADBE.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ADBE.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to ADBE. As of the date of the Prospectus, ADBE is assigned to the software industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
ADBE Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of ADBE. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of ADBE, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of ADBE, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in ADBE Risk. ADBE is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence the management of ADBE but will be exposed to the performance of ADBE (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
ADBE Trading Risk. The trading price of ADBE may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of ADBE may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of ADBE, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of ADBE may additionally impact ADBE’s stock price due to ADBE garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against ADBE in the past. While ADBE continues to defend such actions, any judgment against ADBE, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of ADBE’s attention and resources. If ADBE trading is halted, trading in Shares of the ADBE Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
ADBE Performance Risk. ADBE may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of ADBE to decline. ADBE provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance ADBE provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If ADBE’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by ADBE could decline significantly.
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Software Industry Risk. The software industry can be significantly affected by intense competition, aggressive pricing, technological innovations, and product obsolescence. Companies in the software industry are subject to significant competitive pressures, such as aggressive pricing, new market entrants, competition for market share, short product cycles due to an accelerated rate of technological developments and the potential for limited earnings and/or falling profit margins. These companies also face the risks that new services, equipment or technologies will not be accepted by consumers and businesses or will become rapidly obsolete. These factors can affect the profitability of these companies and, as a result, the value of their securities. Also, patent protection is integral to the success of many companies in this industry, and profitability can be affected materially by, among other things, the cost of obtaining (or failing to obtain) patent approvals, the cost of litigating patent infringement and the loss of patent protection for products (which significantly increases pricing pressures and can materially reduce profitability with respect to such products). In addition, many software companies have limited operating histories. Prices of these companies’ securities historically have been more volatile than other securities, especially over the short term.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of ADBE and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of ADBE. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to ADBE through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
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Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by ADBE over the Call Period. This means that if ADBE experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform ADBE over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by ADBE over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by ADBE over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of ADBE. The degree of participation in ADBE gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of ADBE, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of ADBE and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of ADBE changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of ADBE. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the ADBE will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by ADBE.
Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of ADBE and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of ADBE will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of ADBE, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the ADBE share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period ADBE had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of ADBE and its returns will depend not only on the price of ADBE but also on the path that ADBE takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
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Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as ADBE’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with ADBE. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
New Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with no operating history. As a result, prospective investors do not have a track record or history on which to base their investment decisions.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
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Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (ADBE), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. In particular, in combination with the Fund’s use of a “synthetic” strategy (i.e., purchasing exposure to the underlying stock through a combination of put and call options), the Fund maintains a portfolio of treasury securities, which are expected to enable the Fund to meet the diversification requirements. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser: ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
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Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses(2) | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) |
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s performance. Because the Fund did not commence operations prior to its fiscal year ending October 31, 2023, portfolio turnover information is not yet available.
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of C3.ai, Inc. (“AI”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to AI regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of AI, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive additional income when the value of AI increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of AI, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of AI. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of AI Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by AI. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of AI. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in AI’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in AI
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if AI shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if AI shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in AI. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any AI dividends. |
Additional information regarding AI is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of AI Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of AI.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of AI) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of AI, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of AI on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to AI, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of AI’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where AI call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to AI, the Fund will buy AI call options and, simultaneously, sell AI put options to try to replicate the price movements of AI. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of AI at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of AI for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on AI to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own AI, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of AI, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current AI share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the AI call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in AI’s stock price. If the stock price of AI increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if AI’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to AI and the sold (short) AI call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the AI stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AI through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on AI as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the buyer pays to the seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in AI stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs AI
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of AI’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of AI, changes in the value of the AI options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ AI Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio
Holdings (All options are based on the value of AI) |
Investment Terms | Expected Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AI at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of AI.
If the stock of AI increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AI at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by AI. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts |
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of AI at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the AI share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to AI equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
C3.ai, Inc. (“AI”)
AI is an “artificial intelligence” application software company. AI is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”). Per AI’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of AI (based on the last reported sale price of its class A common stock on October 31, 2022) was approximately $886.7 million.
AI is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by AI pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 001-39744 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding AI may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to AI or other securities of AI. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding AI from publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to AI. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding AI is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of AI (and therefore the price of AI at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning AI could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of AI.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH AI.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to AI. As of the date of the Prospectus, AI is assigned to the software industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
AI Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of AI. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of AI, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of AI, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in AI Risk. AI is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence the management of AI but will be exposed to the performance of AI (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
AI Trading Risk. The trading price of AI may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of AI may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of AI, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of AI may additionally impact AI’s stock price due to AI garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against AI in the past. While AI continues to defend such actions, any judgment against AI, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of AI’s attention and resources. If AI trading is halted, trading in Shares of the Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
AI Performance Risk. AI may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of AI to decline. AI provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance AI provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If AI’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by AI could decline significantly.
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Software Industry Risk. The software industry can be significantly affected by intense competition, aggressive pricing, technological innovations, and product obsolescence. Companies in the software industry are subject to significant competitive pressures, such as aggressive pricing, new market entrants, competition for market share, short product cycles due to an accelerated rate of technological developments and the potential for limited earnings and/or falling profit margins. These companies also face the risks that new services, equipment or technologies will not be accepted by consumers and businesses or will become rapidly obsolete. These factors can affect the profitability of these companies and, as a result, the value of their securities. Also, patent protection is integral to the success of many companies in this industry, and profitability can be affected materially by, among other things, the cost of obtaining (or failing to obtain) patent approvals, the cost of litigating patent infringement and the loss of patent protection for products (which significantly increases pricing pressures and can materially reduce profitability with respect to such products). In addition, many software companies have limited operating histories. Prices of these companies’ securities historically have been more volatile than other securities, especially over the short term.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of AI and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of AI. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AI through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
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Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by AI over the Call Period. This means that if AI experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform AI over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by AI over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by AI over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of AI. The degree of participation in AI gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of AI, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of AI and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of AI changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of AI. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the AI will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by AI.
Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of AI and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AI will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of AI, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the AI share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period AI had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AI and its returns will depend not only on the price of AI but also on the path that AI takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
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Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as AI’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with AI. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
Newer Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with limited operating history. As a result, prospective investors have a limited track record or history on which to base their investment decisions. There can be no assurance that the Fund will maintain an economically viable size.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
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Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (AI), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. In particular, in combination with the Fund’s use of a “synthetic” strategy (i.e., purchasing exposure to the underlying stock through a combination of put and call options), the Fund maintains a portfolio of treasury securities, which are expected to enable the Fund to meet the diversification requirements. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser: ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
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CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | % | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | ||
Other Expenses(2) | % | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses | % |
(1) | ||
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The
Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells
securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may
indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are
held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual
fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s
performance. For the fiscal period September 18, 2023 (commencement of
operations) to October 31, 2023, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (“AMD”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to AMD regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of AMD, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive gains when the value of AMD increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of AMD, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of AMD. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of AMD Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by AMD. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of AMD. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in AMD’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in AMD
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if AMD shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if AMD shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in AMD. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any AMD dividends. |
Additional information regarding AMD is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of AMD Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of AMD.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of AMD) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of AMD, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of AMD on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to AMD, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of AMD’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where AMD call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
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● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to AMD, the Fund will buy AMD call options and, simultaneously, sell AMD put options to try to replicate the price movements of AMD. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of AMD at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of AMD for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on AMD to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own AMD, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of AMD, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current AMD share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the AMD call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in AMD’s stock price. If the stock price of AMD increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if AMD’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to AMD and the sold (short) AMD call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the AMD stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AMD through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on AMD as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the option buyer pays to the option seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in AMD stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs AMD
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of AMD’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of AMD, changes in the value of the AMD options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ AMD Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio
Holdings (All options are based on the value of AMD) |
Investment Terms | Expected
Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AMD at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of AMD.
If the AMD share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AMD at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by AMD. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts
|
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of AMD at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in AMD.
|
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income.
|
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to AMD equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (“AMD”)
AMD is a global semiconductor company. Semiconductors are components used in a variety of electronic products and systems. AMD is listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market. Per AMD’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of AMD’s common stock, as of June 30, 2023, held by its non-affiliates was approximately $182.9 billion.
AMD is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by AMD pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 001-07882 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding AMD may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to AMD or other securities of AMD. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding AMD from the publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to AMD. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding AMD is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of AMD (and therefore the price of AMD at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning AMD could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of AMD.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH AMD.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to AMD. As of the date of the Prospectus, AMD is assigned to the semiconductors industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
AMD Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of AMD. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of AMD, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of AMD, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in AMD Risk. AMD is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence the management of AMD but will be exposed to the performance of AMD (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
AMD Trading Risk. The trading price of AMD may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of AMD may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of AMD, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of AMD may additionally impact AMD’s stock price due to AMD garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against AMD in the past. While AMD continues to defend such actions, any judgment against AMD, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of AMD’s attention and resources. If AMD trading is halted, trading in Shares of the AMD Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
AMD Performance Risk. AMD may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of AMD to decline. AMD provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance AMD provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If AMD’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by AMD could decline significantly.
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Semiconductor Company Risk. Competitive pressures may have a significant effect on the financial condition of semiconductor companies and, as product cycles shorten and manufacturing capacity increases, these companies may become increasingly subject to aggressive pricing, which hampers profitability. Reduced demand for end-user products, under-utilization of manufacturing capacity, and other factors could adversely impact the operating results of companies in the semiconductor sector. Semiconductor companies typically face high capital costs and may be heavily dependent on intellectual property rights. The semiconductor sector is highly cyclical, which may cause the operating results of many semiconductor companies to vary significantly. The stock prices of companies in the semiconductor sector have been and likely will continue to be extremely volatile.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of AMD and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of AMD. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AMD through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by AMD over the Call Period. This means that if AMD experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform AMD over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by AMD over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by AMD over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of AMD. The degree of participation in AMD gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of AMD, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of AMD and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of AMD changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of AMD. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the AMD will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by AMD.
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Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of AMD and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AMD will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of AMD, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the AMD share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period AMD had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AMD and its returns will depend not only on the price of AMD but also on the path that AMD takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
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Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as AMD’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with AMD. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
Newer Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with limited operating history. As a result, prospective investors have a limited track record or history on which to base their investment decisions. There can be no assurance that the Fund will maintain an economically viable size.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
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Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (AMD), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser. ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
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Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses(2) | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) | ||
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The
Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells
securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may
indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are
held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual
fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s
performance. For the fiscal period July 24, 2023 (commencement of operations) to
October 31, 2023, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Amazon.com, Inc. (“AMZN”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to AMZN regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of AMZN, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive gains when the value of AMZN increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of AMZN, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of AMZN. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of AMZN Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by AMZN. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of AMZN. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in AMZN’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in AMZN
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if AMZN shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if AMZN shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in AMZN. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any AMZN dividends. |
Additional information regarding AMZN is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of AMZN Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of AMZN.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of AMZN) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of AMZN, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of AMZN on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to AMZN, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of AMZN’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where AMZN call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to AMZN, the Fund will buy AMZN call options and, simultaneously, sell AMZN put options to try to replicate the price movements of AMZN. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of AMZN at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of AMZN for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on AMZN to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own AMZN, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of AMZN, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current AMZN share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the AMZN call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in AMZN’s stock price. If the stock price of AMZN increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if AMZN’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to AMZN and the sold (short) AMZN call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the AMZN stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AMZN through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on AMZN as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the option buyer pays to the option seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in AMZN stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs AMZN
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of AMZN’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of AMZN, changes in the value of the AMZN options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ AMZN Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio Holdings (All options are based on the value of AMZN) |
Investment Terms | Expected Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AMZN at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of AMZN.
If the stock of AMZN increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts |
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of AMZN at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by AMZN. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts |
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of AMZN at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the AMZN share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to AMZN equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc. is an e-commerce company that operates retail websites and offers programs that enable third parties to sell products on their websites. Amazon.com, Inc. is listed on Nasdaq. The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of Amazon.com, Inc. as of June 30, 2023 was approximately $1.2 trillion.
Amazon.com, Inc. is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by Amazon.com, Inc. pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 000-22513 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding Amazon.com, Inc. may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to AMZN or other securities of Amazon.com, Inc. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding Amazon.com, Inc. from the publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to Amazon.com, Inc. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding Amazon.com, Inc. is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of Amazon.com, Inc. (and therefore the price of Amazon.com, Inc. at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning Amazon.com, Inc. could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of AMZN.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH AMAZON.COM, INC.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to AMZN. As of the date of the Prospectus, AMZN is assigned to the catalog/specialty distribution industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
AMZN Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of AMZN. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of AMZN, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of AMZN, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in AMZN Risk. Amazon.com, Inc. is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence management of Amazon.com, Inc. but will be exposed to the performance of AMZN (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
AMZN Trading Risk. The trading price of AMZN may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of AMZN may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of Amazon.com, Inc., further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of Amazon.com, Inc. may additionally impact AMZN’s stock price due to Amazon.com, Inc. garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against Amazon.com, Inc. in the past. While Amazon.com, Inc. continues to defend such actions, any judgment against Amazon.com, Inc., or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of Amazon.com, Inc.’s attention and resources. If AMZN trading is halted, trading in Shares of the AMZN Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
Amazon.com, Inc. Performance Risk. Amazon.com, Inc. may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of AMZN to decline. Amazon.com, Inc. provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance Amazon.com, Inc. provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If Amazon.com, Inc.’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by Amazon.com, Inc. could decline significantly.
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Internet & Direct Marketing Retail Risk. Companies, such as Amazon.com, Inc., that operate via the internet or direct marketing (e.g., online consumer services, online retail, travel) segments are subject to fluctuating consumer demand. Unlike traditional brick and mortar retailers, online marketplaces and retailers must assume shipping costs or pass such costs to consumers. Consumer access to price information for the same or similar products may cause companies that operate in the online marketplace, retail and travel segments to reduce profit margins in order to compete. Due to the nature of their business models, companies that operate in the online marketplace, retail, and travel segments may also be subject to heightened cybersecurity risk, including the risk of theft or damage to vital hardware, software, and information systems. The loss or public dissemination of sensitive customer information or other proprietary data may negatively affect the financial performance of such companies to a greater extent than traditional brick and mortar retailers. As a result of such companies being web-based and the fact that they process, store, and transmit large amounts of data, including personal information, for their customers, failure to prevent or mitigate data loss or other security breaches, including breaches of vendors’ technology and systems, could expose companies that operate via the internet or direct marketing retail to a risk of loss or misuse of such information, adversely affect their operating results, result in litigation or potential liability, and otherwise harm their businesses.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of AMZN and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of AMZN. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to AMZN through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
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Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by AMZN over the Call Period. This means that if AMZN experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform AMZN over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by AMZN over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by AMZN over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of AMZN. The degree of participation in AMZN gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of AMZN, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of AMZN and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of AMZN changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of AMZN. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the AMZN will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by AMZN.
Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of AMZN and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AMZN will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of AMZN, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the AMZN share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period AMZN had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of AMZN and its returns will depend not only on the price of AMZN but also on the path that AMZN takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
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Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as AMZN’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with AMZN. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
Newer Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with limited operating history. As a result, prospective investors have a limited track record or history on which to base their investment decisions. There can be no assurance that the Fund will maintain an economically viable size.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
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Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (AMZN), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser. ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2023.
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CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses(2) | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) |
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years | |
$ |
$ |
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s performance. Because the Fund has not commenced operations as of the date of this Prospectus, portfolio turnover information is not yet available.
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of The Boeing Company (“BA”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to BA regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of BA, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive additional income when the value of BA increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of BA, |
● | current income from the option premiums, and |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of BA. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of BA Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by BA. |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of BA. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in BA’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in BA
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if BA shares increase in value. |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if BA shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in BA. |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any BA dividends. |
Additional information regarding BA is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of BA Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of BA.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of BA) at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of BA, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of BA on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to BA, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of BA’s stock. |
● | Covered call writing (where BA call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to BA, the Fund will buy BA call options and, simultaneously, sell BA put options to try to replicate the price movements of BA. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of BA at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of BA for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on BA to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own BA, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of BA, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current BA share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the BA call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in BA’s stock price. If the stock price of BA increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if BA’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to BA and the sold (short) BA call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the BA stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to BA through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on BA as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the buyer pays to the seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in BA stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs BA
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of BA’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of BA, changes in the value of the BA options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ BA Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio Holdings (All
options are based on |
Investment Terms | Expected
Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of BA at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of BA.
If the BA share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of BA at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by BA. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts
|
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of BA at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the BA share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides indirect investment exposure to BA equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
The Boeing Company (“BA”)
BA develops, produces and markets commercial and military aircraft. BA is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Per BA’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of common shares outstanding held by non-affiliates of BA, as of June 30, 2023, was approximately $127.3 billion.
BA is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by BA pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 1-442 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding BA may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to BA or other securities of BA. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding BA from publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to BA. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding BA is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of BA (and therefore the price of BA at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning BA could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of BA.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH BA.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to BA. As of the date of the Prospectus, BA is assigned to the aerospace & defense industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
BA Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of BA. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of BA, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of BA, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in BA Risk. BA is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence the management of BA but will be exposed to the performance of BA (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
BA Trading Risk. The trading price of BA may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for banking and financial services companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of BA may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of BA, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of BA may additionally impact BA’s stock price due to BA garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against BA in the past. While BA continues to defend such actions, any judgment against BA, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of BA’s attention and resources. If BA trading is halted, trading in Shares of the BA Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
BA Performance Risk. BA may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of BA to decline. BA provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance BA provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If BA’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by BA could decline significantly.
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Aerospace & Defense Industry Risk. The Aerospace and Defense Industry comprises businesses engaged in manufacturing equipment, parts, or products for civil or military aerospace and defense applications. This industry’s performance can be notably cyclical, leading to intermittent operating losses for its companies. Factors such as geopolitical dynamics, economic conditions, environmental considerations, enhanced competition, and the capacity to recruit and maintain a highly skilled workforce, including crucial personnel, can significantly impact the industry. Additionally, the industry’s operations can be influenced by legislative or regulatory shifts and heightened government oversight.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of BA and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of BA. The Fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to BA through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by BA over the Call Period. This means that if BA experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform BA over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by BA over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by BA over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of BA. The degree of participation in BA gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of BA, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of BA and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of BA changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of BA. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the BA will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by BA.
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Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of BA and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of BA will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of BA, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the BA share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period BA had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of BA and its returns will depend not only on the price of BA but also on the path that BA takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
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Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as BA’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains.
Inflation Risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the value of assets or income from investments will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. As inflation increases, the present value of the Fund’s assets and distributions, if any, may decline.
Liquidity Risk. Some securities held by the Fund, including options contracts, may be difficult to sell or be illiquid, particularly during times of market turmoil. This risk is greater for the Fund as it will hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts. Markets for securities or financial instruments could be disrupted by a number of events, including, but not limited to, an economic crisis, natural disasters, epidemics/pandemics, new legislation or regulatory changes inside or outside the United States. Illiquid securities may be difficult to value, especially in changing or volatile markets. If the Fund is forced to sell an illiquid security at an unfavorable time or price, the Fund may be adversely impacted. Certain market conditions or restrictions, such as market rules related to short sales, may prevent the Fund from limiting losses, realizing gains or achieving a high correlation with BA. There is no assurance that a security that is deemed liquid when purchased will continue to be liquid. Market illiquidity may cause losses for the Fund.
Money Market Instrument Risk. The Fund may use a variety of money market instruments for cash management purposes, including money market funds, depositary accounts and repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are contracts in which a seller of securities agrees to buy the securities back at a specified time and price. Repurchase agreements may be subject to market and credit risk related to the collateral securing the repurchase agreement. Money market instruments, including money market funds, may lose money through fees or other means.
New Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with no operating history. As a result, prospective investors do not have a track record or history on which to base their investment decisions.
Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
Operational Risk. The Fund is subject to risks arising from various operational factors, including, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Fund’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. The Fund relies on third-parties for a range of services, including custody. Any delay or failure relating to engaging or maintaining such service providers may affect the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. Although the Fund, Adviser, and Sub-Adviser seek to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
Recent Market Events Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which has resulted in a public health crisis, disruptions to business operations and supply chains, stress on the global healthcare system, growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas, staffing shortages and the inability to meet consumer demand, and widespread concern and uncertainty. The global recovery from COVID-19 is proceeding at slower than expected rates due to the emergence of variant strains and may last for an extended period of time. Continuing uncertainties regarding interest rates, rising inflation, political events, rising government debt in the U.S. and trade tensions also contribute to market volatility. Conflict, loss of life and disaster connected to ongoing armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East could have severe adverse effects on the related region, including significant adverse effects on the regional or global economies and the markets for certain securities. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and companies, including certain financial institutions, and have limited certain exports and imports to and from Russia. These conflicts have contributed to recent market volatility and may continue to do so.
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Single Issuer Risk. Issuer-specific attributes may cause an investment in the Fund to be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment which diversifies risk or the market generally. The value of the Fund, which focuses on an individual security (BA), may be more volatile than a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole and may perform differently from the value of a traditional pooled investment or the market as a whole.
Tax Risk. The Fund intends to elect and to qualify each year to be treated as a RIC under Subchapter M of the Code. As a RIC, the Fund will not be subject to U.S. federal income tax on the portion of its net investment income and net capital gain that it distributes to Shareholders, provided that it satisfies certain requirements of the Code. If the Fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions are not available, the Fund’s taxable income will be subject to tax at the Fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. To comply with the asset diversification test applicable to a RIC, the Fund will attempt to ensure that the value of options it holds is never 25% of the total value of Fund assets at the close of any quarter. In particular, in combination with the Fund’s use of a “synthetic” strategy (i.e., purchasing exposure to the underlying stock through a combination of put and call options), the Fund maintains a portfolio of treasury securities, which are expected to enable the Fund to meet the diversification requirements. If the Fund’s investments in options were to exceed 25% of the Fund’s total assets at the end of a tax quarter, the Fund, generally, has a grace period to cure such lack of compliance. If the Fund fails to timely cure, it may no longer be eligible to be treated as a RIC.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
Management
Investment Adviser: Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser: ZEGA Financial, LLC serves as the investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers:
The following individuals are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund.
Mick Brokaw, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Jay Pestrichelli, Portfolio Manager for the Sub-Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Qiao Duan, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
Charles A. Ragauss, CFA, Portfolio Manager for the Adviser, has been a portfolio manager of the Fund since its inception in 2024.
CFA® is a registered trademark owned by the CFA Institute.
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Purchase and Sale of Shares
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only Authorized Participants (APs) (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.
Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as the Exchange, and individual Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through brokers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (the “bid” price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (the “ask” price) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market. This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “bid-ask spread.”
When available, information regarding the Fund’s NAV, market price, how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a premium or discount, and bid-ask spreads can be found on the Fund’s website at www.yieldmaxetfs.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless an investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange-traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training, or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
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This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.
Management Fee | |
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees | |
Other Expenses(2) | |
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses |
(1) |
(2) |
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem or hold all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The Example does not take into account brokerage commissions that you may pay on your purchases and sales of Shares. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 Year | 3 Years |
$ |
$ |
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example above, affect the Fund’s performance. Because the Fund has not commenced operations as of the date of this Prospectus, portfolio turnover information is not yet available.
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks current income while providing indirect exposure to the share price (i.e., the price returns) of the common stock of Biogen Inc. (“BIIB”), subject to a limit on potential investment gains. The Fund will employ its investment strategy as it relates to BIIB regardless of whether there are periods of adverse market, economic, or other conditions and will not take temporary defensive positions during such periods. As further described below, the Fund uses a synthetic covered call strategy to provide income and indirect exposure to the share price returns of BIIB, subject to a limit on potential investment gains as a result of the nature of the options strategy it employs. That is, the Fund not only seeks to generate income from its options investments but also aims to derive additional income when the value of BIIB increases. The Fund’s options contracts provide:
● | indirect exposure to the share price returns of BIIB, | |
● | current income from the option premiums, and | |
● | a limit on the Fund’s participation in gains, if any, of the share price returns of BIIB. |
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For more information, see sections “The Fund’s Use of BIIB Option Contracts” and “Synthetic Covered Call Strategy” below.
The Fund’s investment adviser is Tidal Investments LLC (the “Adviser”) and the investment sub-adviser is ZEGA Financial, LLC (“ZEGA” or the “Sub-Adviser”).
Why invest in the Fund?
● | The Fund seeks to participate in a portion of the gains experienced by BIIB. | |
● | The Fund seeks to generate monthly income, which is not dependent on the price appreciation of BIIB. |
That is, although the Fund may not fully participate in gains in BIIB’s stock price, the Fund’s portfolio is designed to generate income.
An Investment in the Fund is not an investment in BIIB
● | The Fund’s strategy will cap its potential gains if BIIB shares increase in value. | |
● | The Fund’s strategy is subject to all potential losses if BIIB shares decrease in value, which may not be offset by income received by the Fund. | |
● | The Fund does not invest directly in BIIB. | |
● | Fund shareholders are not entitled to any BIIB dividends. |
Additional information regarding BIIB is also set forth below.
The Fund’s Use of BIIB Option Contracts
As part of the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy, the Fund will purchase and sell a combination of standardized exchange-traded and FLexible EXchange® (“FLEX”) call and put option contracts that are based on the value of the price returns of BIIB.
● | In general, an option contract gives the purchaser of the option contract the right to purchase (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying asset (like shares of BIIB) at a specified price (the “strike price”). | |
● | If exercised, an option contract obligates the seller to deliver shares (for a sold or “short” call) or buy shares (for a sold or “short” put) of the underlying asset at a specified price (the “strike price”). | |
● | Options contracts must be exercised or traded to close within a specified time frame, or they expire. See the chart in section “Fund Portfolio” below for a description of the option contracts utilized by the Fund. |
Standardized exchange-traded options include standardized terms. FLEX options are also exchange-traded, but they allow for customizable terms (e.g., the strike price can be negotiated). For more information on FLEX options, see “Additional Information about the Funds – Exchange Traded Options Portfolio.”
The Fund’s options contracts are based on the value of BIIB, which gives the Fund the right or obligation to receive or deliver shares of BIIB on the expiration date of the applicable option contract in exchange for the stated strike price, depending on whether the option contract is a call option or a put option, and whether the Fund purchases or sells the option contract.
Synthetic Covered Call Strategy
In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Fund will implement a “synthetic covered call” strategy using the standardized exchange-traded and FLEX options described above.
● | A traditional covered call strategy is an investment strategy where an investor (the Fund) sells a call option on an underlying security it owns. | |
● | A synthetic covered call strategy is similar to a traditional covered call strategy in that the investor sells a call option that is based on the value of the underlying security. However, in a synthetic covered call strategy, the investor (the Fund) does not own the underlying security, but rather seeks to synthetically replicate 100% of the price movements of the underlying security through the use of various investment instruments. |
The Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy consists of the following three elements, each of which is described in greater detail farther below:
● | Synthetic long exposure to BIIB, which allows the Fund to seek to participate in the changes, up or down, in the price of BIIB’s stock. | |
● | Covered call writing (where BIIB call options are sold against the synthetic long portion of the strategy), which allows the Fund to generate income. | |
● | U.S. Treasuries, which are used for collateral for the options, and which also generate income. |
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1. | Synthetic Long Exposure |
To achieve a synthetic long exposure to BIIB, the Fund will buy BIIB call options and, simultaneously, sell BIIB put options to try to replicate the price movements of BIIB. The call options purchased by the Fund and the put options sold by the Fund will generally have one-month to six-month terms and strike prices that are approximately equal to the then-current share price of BIIB at the time the contracts are purchased and sold, respectively. The combination of the long call options and sold put options provides the Fund with indirect investment exposure equal to approximately 100% of BIIB for the duration of the applicable options exposure.
2. | Covered Call Writing |
As part of its strategy, the Fund will write (sell) call option contracts on BIIB to generate income. Since the Fund does not directly own BIIB, these written call options will be sold short (i.e., selling a position it does not currently own). The Fund will seek to participate in the share price appreciation of BIIB, if any. However, due to the nature of covered call strategies, the Fund’s participation may be subject to a cap (as described below). In this strategy, the call options written (sold) by the Fund will generally have an expiration of one month or less (the “Call Period”) and generally have a strike price that is approximately 0%-15% above the then-current BIIB share price.
It is important to note that the sale of the BIIB call option contracts will limit the Fund’s participation in the appreciation in BIIB’s stock price. If the stock price of BIIB increases, the above-referenced synthetic long exposure alone would allow the Fund to experience similar percentage gains. However, if BIIB’s stock price appreciates beyond the strike price of one or more of the sold (short) call option contracts, the Fund will lose money on those short call positions, and the losses will, in turn, limit the upside return of the Fund’s synthetic long exposure. As a result, the Fund’s overall strategy (i.e., the combination of the synthetic long exposure to BIIB and the sold (short) BIIB call positions) will limit the Fund’s participation in gains in the BIIB stock price beyond a certain point.
3. | U.S. Treasuries |
The Fund will hold short-term U.S. Treasury securities as collateral in connection with the Fund’s synthetic covered call strategy.
The Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to BIIB through the use of options contracts. As the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it may enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” The Fund’s practice of rolling options may result in high portfolio turnover.
Fund’s Monthly Distributions
The Fund will seek to provide monthly income in the form of cash distributions. The Fund will seek to generate such income in the following ways:
● | Writing (selling) call option contracts on BIIB as described above. The income comes mainly from the option premiums received from these option sales. A premium, in this context, refers to the price the buyer pays to the seller (the Fund) for the rights granted by the option. The amount of these premiums is largely affected by the fluctuations in BIIB stock prices. However, other elements like interest rates can also influence the income level. | |
● | Investing in short-term U.S. Treasury securities. The income generated by these securities will be influenced by interest rates at the time of investment. |
Fund’s Return Profile vs BIIB
For the reasons stated above, the Fund’s performance will differ from that of BIIB’s stock price. The performance differences will depend on, among other things, the price of BIIB, changes in the value of the BIIB options contracts the Fund holds, and changes in the value of the U.S. Treasuries.
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Fund Portfolio
The Fund’s principal holdings are described below:
YieldMax™ BIIB Option Income Strategy ETF – Principal Holdings | ||
Portfolio Holdings (All
options are based on |
Investment Terms | Expected
Target Maturity |
Purchased call option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of BIIB at the time of purchase) to provide indirect exposure to positive price returns of BIIB.
If the BIIB share price increases, these options will generate corresponding increases to the Fund. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold put option contracts
|
“at-the-money” (i.e., the strike price is equal to the then-current share price of BIIB at the time of sale).
They are sold to help pay for the purchased call options described above.
However, the sold put option contracts provide exposure to the full extent of any share price losses experienced by BIIB. |
1-month to 6-month expiration dates |
Sold (short) call option contracts
|
The strike price is approximately 0%-15% more than the then-current share price of BIIB at the time of sale.
They generate current income. However, they also limit some potential positive returns that the Fund may have otherwise experienced from gains in the BIIB share price. |
1-month or less expiration dates |
U.S Treasury Securities and Cash |
Multiple series of U.S. Treasury Bills supported by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
These instruments are used as collateral for the Fund’s derivative investments.
They will also generate income. |
6-month to 2-year maturities |
The market value of the cash and treasuries held by the Fund is expected to be between 50% and 100% of the Fund’s net assets and the market value of the options package is expected to be between 0% and 50% of the Fund’s net assets. In terms of notional value, the combination of these investment instruments provides investment exposure to BIIB equal to at least 100% of the Fund’s total assets.
The Fund is classified as “non-diversified” under the 1940 Act.
There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment strategy will be properly implemented, and an investor may lose some or all of its investment.
Biogen Inc. (“BIIB”)
BIIB is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and delivering innovative therapies for treating neurological and neurodegenerative diseases worldwide. BIIB is listed on The Nasdaq Global Select Market. Per BIIB’s most recent Form 10-K filing, the aggregate market value of common stock, as of June 30, 2023, held by non-affiliates of BIIB was $41.2 billion.
BIIB is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Information provided to or filed with the SEC by BIIB pursuant to the Exchange Act can be located by reference to the SEC file number 0-19311 through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, information regarding BIIB may be obtained from other sources including, but not limited to, press releases, newspaper articles and other publicly disseminated documents.
This document relates only to the securities offered hereby and does not relate to BIIB or other securities of BIIB. The Fund has derived all disclosures contained in this document regarding BIIB from publicly available documents. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates has participated in the preparation of such publicly available offering documents or made any due diligence inquiry regarding such documents with respect to BIIB. None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation that such publicly available documents or any other publicly available information regarding BIIB is accurate or complete. Furthermore, the Fund cannot give any assurance that all events occurring prior to the date hereof (including events that would affect the accuracy or completeness of the publicly available documents described above) that would affect the trading price of BIIB (and therefore the price of BIIB at the time we price the securities) have been publicly disclosed. Subsequent disclosure of any such events or the disclosure of or failure to disclose material future events concerning BIIB could affect the value received with respect to the securities and therefore the value of the securities.
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None of the Fund, the Trust, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates makes any representation to you as to the performance of BIIB.
THE FUND, TRUST, ADVISER, AND SUB-ADVISER ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH BIIB.
Due to the Fund’s investment strategy, the Fund’s investment exposure is concentrated in (or substantially exposed to) the same industry as that assigned to BIIB. As of the date of the Prospectus, BIIB is assigned to the biotechnology industry.
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) per share, trading price, yield, total return, and/or ability to meet its objective. For more information about the risks of investing in the Fund, see the section in the Fund’s Prospectus titled “Additional Information About the Funds—Principal Risks of Investing in the Funds.”
An
investment in the Fund entails risk.
Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fund, regardless of the order in which they appear.
BIIB Risk. The Fund invests in options contracts that are based on the value of BIIB. This subjects the Fund to certain of the same risks as if it owned shares of BIIB, even though it does not. By virtue of the Fund’s investments in options contracts that are based on the value of BIIB, the Fund may also be subject to the following risks:
Indirect Investment in BIIB Risk. BIIB is not affiliated with the Trust, the Fund, the Adviser, the Sub-Adviser, or their respective affiliates and is not involved with this offering in any way and has no obligation to consider your Shares in taking any corporate actions that might affect the value of Shares. Investors in the Fund will not have voting rights and will not be able to influence the management of BIIB but will be exposed to the performance of BIIB (the underlying stock). Investors in the Fund will not have rights to receive dividends or other distributions or any other rights with respect to the underlying stock but will be subject to declines in the performance of the underlying stock.
BIIB Trading Risk. The trading price of BIIB may be highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The stock market in general, and the market for biotechnology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In particular, a large proportion of BIIB may be traded by short sellers which may put pressure on the supply and demand for the common stock of BIIB, further influencing volatility in its market price. Public perception and other factors outside of the control of BIIB may additionally impact BIIB’s stock price due to BIIB garnering a disproportionate degree of public attention, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies such as these. Moreover, stockholder litigation like this has been filed against BIIB in the past. While BIIB continues to defend such actions, any judgment against BIIB, or any future stockholder litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of the management of BIIB’s attention and resources. If BIIB trading is halted, trading in Shares of the BIIB Fund may be impacted, either temporarily or indefinitely.
BIIB Performance Risk. BIIB may fail to meet its publicly announced guidelines or other expectations about its business, which could cause the price of BIIB to decline. BIIB provides guidance regarding its expected financial and business performance, such as projections regarding sales and production, as well as anticipated future revenues, gross margins, profitability and cash flows. Correctly identifying key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is inherently an uncertain process, and the guidance BIIB provides may not ultimately be accurate and has in the past been inaccurate in certain respects, such as the timing of new product manufacturing ramps. The guidance is based on certain assumptions such as those relating to global and local economic conditions, anticipated production and sales volumes (which generally are not linear throughout a given period), average sales prices, supplier and commodity costs, and planned cost reductions. If BIIB’s guidance is not accurate or varies from actual results due to its inability to meet the assumptions or the impact on its financial performance that could occur as a result of various risks and uncertainties, the market value of common stock issued by BIIB could decline significantly.
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Biotechnology Industry Risk. The biotechnology industry faces numerous risks, encompassing a range of regulatory, scientific, operational, and market-related challenges. Key among these are the heavy regulatory scrutiny and the high cost of research and development, with no guarantee of return, given that a significant percentage of drug candidates fail during clinical trials. Additionally, the industry grapples with the complexities of patent protection and the subsequent threat of generic competition once these protections expire. Manufacturing issues and supply chain disruptions can also have a substantial impact on a company’s ability to produce and distribute drugs. Market acceptance and competition from other drugs or treatments further influence a drug’s profitability. Moreover, legal and reputational risks, such as those arising from potential side effects or product recalls, can lead to significant financial and reputational damage. All these factors contribute to a volatile risk landscape for the biotechnology industry.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, imperfect correlation with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be an imperfect correlation between the value of BIIB and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested. In addition, the Fund’s investments in derivatives are subject to the following risks:
Options Contracts. The use of options contracts involves investment strategies and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The prices of options are volatile and are influenced by, among other things, actual and anticipated changes in the value of the underlying instrument, including the anticipated volatility, which are affected by fiscal and monetary policies and by national and international political, changes in the actual or implied volatility or the reference asset, the time remaining until the expiration of the option contract and economic events. For the Fund in particular, the value of the options contracts in which it invests are substantially influenced by the value of BIIB. The fund may experience substantial downside from specific option positions and certain option positions held by the Fund may expire worthless. The options held by the Fund are exercisable at the strike price on their expiration date. As an option approaches its expiration date, its value typically increasingly moves with the value of the underlying instrument. However, prior to such date, the value of an option generally does not increase or decrease at the same rate at the underlying instrument. There may at times be an imperfect correlation between the movement in the values of options contracts and the underlying instrument, and there may at times not be a liquid secondary market for certain options contracts. The value of the options held by the Fund will be determined based on market quotations or other recognized pricing methods. Additionally, as the Fund intends to continuously maintain indirect exposure to BIIB through the use of options contracts, as the options contracts it holds are exercised or expire it will enter into new options contracts, a practice referred to as “rolling.” If the expiring options contracts do not generate proceeds enough to cover the cost of entering into new options contracts, the Fund may experience losses.
Counterparty Risk. The Fund is subject to counterparty risk by virtue of its investments in options contracts. Transactions in some types of derivatives, including options, are required to be centrally cleared (“cleared derivatives”). In a transaction involving cleared derivatives, the Fund’s counterparty is a clearing house rather than a bank or broker. Since the Fund is not a member of clearing houses and only members of a clearing house (“clearing members”) can participate directly in the clearing house, the Fund will hold cleared derivatives through accounts at clearing members. In cleared derivatives positions, the Fund will make payments (including margin payments) to and receive payments from a clearing house through their accounts at clearing members. Customer funds held at a clearing organization in connection with any options contracts are held in a commingled omnibus account and are not identified to the name of the clearing member’s individual customers. As a result, assets deposited by the Fund with any clearing member as margin for options may, in certain circumstances, be used to satisfy losses of other clients of the Fund’s clearing member. In addition, although clearing members guarantee performance of their clients’ obligations to the clearing house, there is a risk that the assets of the Fund might not be fully protected in the event of the clearing member’s bankruptcy, as the Fund would be limited to recovering only a pro rata share of all available funds segregated on behalf of the clearing member’s customers for the relevant account class. The Fund is also subject to the risk that a limited number of clearing members are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf, which heightens the risks associated with a clearing member’s default. This risk is greater for the Fund as it seeks to hold options contracts on a single security, and not a broader range of options contracts, which may limit the number of clearing members that are willing to transact on the Fund’s behalf. If a clearing member defaults the Fund could lose some or all of the benefits of a transaction entered into by the Fund with the clearing member. If the Fund cannot find a clearing member to transact with on the Fund’s behalf, the Fund may be unable to effectively implement its investment strategy.
Price Participation Risk. The Fund employs an investment strategy that includes the sale of call option contracts, which limits the degree to which the Fund will participate in increases in value experienced by BIIB over the Call Period. This means that if BIIB experiences an increase in value above the strike price of the sold call options during a Call Period, the Fund will likely not experience that increase to the same extent and may significantly underperform BIIB over the Call Period. Additionally, because the Fund is limited in the degree to which it will participate in increases in value experienced by BIIB over each Call Period, but has full exposure to any decreases in value experienced by BIIB over the Call Period, the NAV of the Fund may decrease over any given time period. The Fund’s NAV is dependent on the value of each options portfolio, which is based principally upon the performance of BIIB. The degree of participation in BIIB gains the Fund will experience will depend on prevailing market conditions, especially market volatility, at the time the Fund enters into the sold call option contracts and will vary from Call Period to Call Period. The value of the options contracts is affected by changes in the value and dividend rates of BIIB, changes in interest rates, changes in the actual or perceived volatility of BIIB and the remaining time to the options’ expiration, as well as trading conditions in the options market. As the price of BIIB changes and time moves towards the expiration of each Call Period, the value of the options contracts, and therefore the Fund’s NAV, will change. However, it is not expected for the Fund’s NAV to directly correlate on a day-to-day basis with the returns of BIIB. The amount of time remaining until the options contract’s expiration date affects the impact of the potential options contract income on the Fund’s NAV, which may not be in full effect until the expiration date of the Fund’s options contracts. Therefore, while changes in the price of the BIIB will result in changes to the Fund’s NAV, the Fund generally anticipates that the rate of change in the Fund’s NAV will be different than that experienced by BIIB.
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Distribution Risk. As part of the Fund’s investment objective, the Fund seeks to provide current monthly income. There is no assurance that the Fund will make a distribution in any given month. If the Fund does make distributions, the amounts of such distributions will likely vary greatly from one distribution to the next. Additionally, the monthly distributions, if any, may consist of returns of capital, which would decrease the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
NAV Erosion Risk Due to Distributions. When the Fund makes a distribution, the Fund’s NAV will typically drop by the amount of the distribution on the related ex-dividend date. The repeated payment of distributions by the Fund, if any, may significantly erode the Fund’s NAV and trading price over time. As a result, an investor may suffer significant losses to their investment. In addition, the underlying stock may pay dividends, the Fund’s returns will not include any dividends paid by the underlying stock, and any income generated by the Fund may be less than the income generated by a direct investment in the underlying stock.
Call Writing Strategy Risk. The path dependency (i.e., the continued use) of the Fund’s call writing strategy will impact the extent that the Fund participates in the positive price returns of BIIB and, in turn, the Fund’s returns, both during the term of the sold call options and over longer time periods. If, for example, each month the Fund were to sell 7% out-of-the-money call options having a one-month term, the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of BIIB will be capped at 7% in any given month. However, over a longer period (e.g., 5 months), the Fund should not be expected to participate fully in the first 35% (i.e., 5 months x 7%) of the positive price returns of BIIB, or the Fund may even lose money, even if the BIIB share price has appreciated by at least that much over such period, if during any month over that period BIIB had a return less than 7%. This example illustrates that both the Fund’s participation in the positive price returns of BIIB and its returns will depend not only on the price of BIIB but also on the path that BIIB takes over time.
ETF Risks.
Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are authorized to purchase and redeem Shares directly from the Fund (known as “Authorized Participants” or “APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services; or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. For example, the Fund may not be able to redeem in-kind certain securities held by the Fund (e.g., derivative instruments). In such a case, the Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used. By paying out higher annual capital gain distributions, investors may be subjected to increased capital gains taxes. Additionally, there may be brokerage costs or taxable gains or losses that may be imposed on the Fund in connection with a cash redemption that may not have occurred if the Fund had made a redemption in-kind. These costs could decrease the value of the Fund to the extent they are not offset by a transaction fee payable by an AP.
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Management Risk. The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed portfolio. In managing the Fund’s investment portfolio, the portfolio managers will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not produce the desired result. There can be no guarantee that the Fund will meet its investment objective.
Trading. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, such as NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “Exchange”), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for the Shares will develop or be maintained or that the Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. This risk may be greater for the Fund as it seeks to have indirect exposure to a single underlying stock as opposed to a more diverse portfolio like a traditional pooled investment. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares. Shares trade on the Exchange at a market price that may be below, at or above the Fund’s NAV. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to the Exchange “circuit breaker” rules. There can be no assurance that the requirements of the Exchange necessary to maintain the listing of the Fund will continue to be met or will remain unchanged. In the event of an unscheduled market close for options contracts that reference a single stock, such as BIIB’s securities being halted or a market wide closure, settlement prices will be determined by the procedures of the listing exchange of the options contracts. As a result, the Fund could be adversely affected and be unable to implement its investment strategies in the event of an unscheduled closing.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the Fund’s holdings. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fund due to