I disagree. Intuitively, both lower upside and less downside should give MSTY a lower beta and a lower standard deviation of returns than MSTR. If you're talking about the extra risk associated with MSTY's operations (i.e., the possibility that they screw up), then I'd agree that MSTY is riskier, because that risk would be additive (though not sure that it would be "several orders of magnitude" riskier). But your phrasing of "any financial measurement perspective taught in MBA business schools" makes it sound like you mean beta and standard deviation of returns, the two most commonly used risk measures emphasized in standard MBA-level investments classes.
Let's see what the YieldMax website claims about NAV and Market Price for MSTY performance. https://www.yieldmaxetfs.com/our-etfs/msty/ Let's start with Price and take a look at the six month chart. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSTY/ So let me ask how does down 35% or so equal claims of a 36.99% increase in Price? Can someone explain the obvious difference? Similarly the YieldMax claims about NAV are similarly suspect. Let's take a look at MSTY's NAV history. Here is a six month chart... you can also select other time periods. https://weissratings.com/en/etf/msty-nyse-arca/nav-history How is this a six month NAV gain of 41.28% as claimed on the YieldMax website? Is this the definition of "NAV growing at a very fast pace"?
Price or NAV plots often don't include dividends (Yahoo!Finance price plots, for instance). The YieldMax website specifically says "performance," not "increase in Price" or "NAV gain." Performance would reflect an investor's return, which obviously should include dividends. johnarb should have said AUM, not NAV (which typically means share price), is growing at a very fast pace.
Which is part of the problem with YieldMax which makes it risky -- insufficient information and information not aligned with industry norms. Now let's mention -- the intent of most people investing in YieldMax ETFs is to live off the high dividends. If they simply wanted total return then they could invest in the underlying stocks with much higher total returns. Additionally the underlying stocks would get federal capital gains tax treatment when sold which is much better than ordinary rates (once the Return of Capital treatment runs out in about a year of distributions). If you aren't living off the dividends then why invest in MSTY? MSTR with similar characteristics in terms of beta, etc. and better total returns would be a much better investment. Without re-investing the dividends then MSTY is a total dog -- your initial money goes down over nearly every time frame. AUM increases simply indicate that more investors (sheep) are putting money into the ETF. This makes the management team happy since their total pool of fees go up. However AUM is totally different than NAV. However the YieldMax website states that "MSTY NAV" (not AUM) has increased by 41.28% in six months. Any reputable third-party financial source indicates this claim about NAV is not true.
Price data where the last column is adjusted for dividends from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSTY/history/ price adjusted for dividends Apr 30, 2025 = 22.04 price adjusted for dividends Nov 29, 2024 = 20.89 (market was closed Nov 30, 2024) The 6-month change is +5.51% which is not too near the +36.99% from the YieldMax website.
Ok I reverse engineered this...first I had to get Chatgpt to decode the D speak. So it simulates just buying stocks sort of with less upside performance and downside deterioration...capped risk.
I made a mistake. The Oct 30, 2024 adjusted close was 16.04 which makes the 6-month gain from Oct 30-2024 through Apr 30,2025 +37.41%.