Two S&P 500 income ETFs, GPIX and OVL, are ahead of VOO on total return with two months left in 2026, while paying out 8% to 10% a year in monthly distributions.

That is not supposed to happen. The usual deal with options-income ETFs is simple: you get a big monthly check, and in exchange you give up some growth versus just owning the S&P 500. For most of the last few years, that is exactly how it played out.

In this post I'll walk through the numbers, how each fund actually earns its income, why they are winning this year, the pros and cons, what other investors are saying, and the question I get most in my comments: if these funds win in choppy years and lag in strong ones, can't you just switch at the right time? I'll also look at JPMorgan's new ROCY, which looks like it is beating VOO on paper, with a catch.

The Scoreboard

OVL leads VOO by about 1.4 points this year and GPIX by about 0.35 points, measured over the same dates with dividends reinvested.

Fund	Issuer	2026 total return	S&P 500 over the same window	Distribution rate	Expense ratio
OVL	Liquid Strategies (Overlay Shares)	+13.13% YTD to Oct 30	VOO +11.75%	10.53%	0.79%
GPIX	Goldman Sachs	+11.54% YTD to Nov 2	VOO +11.19%	about 8%	0.29%
ROCY	JPMorgan	+13.61% from its Mar 18 launch to Sep 30	S&P 500 index +16.18%	6.60%	0.35%
VOO	Vanguard	+11.19% YTD to Nov 2	Benchmark	Dividends only	0.03%

The ROCY row is the catch I mentioned. Its headline return of about 13.8% looks better than VOO's calendar-year number, but ROCY only launched in mid-March, after the spring dip. Over the same window, it actually trailed the S&P 500 by about 2.6 points. What ROCY has delivered is a much smoother ride. More on that below.

One note on fees: most data sites list GPIX at 0.29%, while a few show 0.35%. Either way, it is far cheaper than the 1.12% average for derivative-income funds tracked by AAII.

How each fund makes its income

All three hold large US stocks and add an options layer on top, but each layer works differently, and that difference decides when each fund wins.

GPIX: a Light Covered Call

GPIX holds roughly the S&P 500 and sells index call options against part of the portfolio. Goldman can write calls on anywhere from 25% to 75% of the fund, and recent analysis puts the actual level around 30%. That low overwrite is the key: about two-thirds of the portfolio keeps its full upside, while the calls generate premium for the monthly payout.

GPIX launched in October 2023 and has grown past $5 billion in assets. It pays monthly (roughly $0.37 to $0.40 a share in the first half of 2026), and its top holdings mirror the index: Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon. Since launch it has turned $10,000 into about $17,900, versus $18,900 for SPY. That gap is the price of the income, and it is smaller than most covered call funds charge you. GPIX suits investors who want a high monthly payout but still want to stay close to the S&P 500.

OVL: VOO Plus a Put-selling Overlay

OVL owns S&P 500 exposure through VOO, then sells put credit spreads on the index. If the market stays above the short strike, the fund keeps the premium. Because it does not sell calls, OVL's upside is not capped, but the overlay adds risk on the way down. Since January 2026 it has paid a monthly distribution of roughly 10% annualized.

OVL is the oldest fund here, launched in 2019, with close to $500 million in assets. Until this year it paid a modest quarterly dividend; the switch to about $0.49 a share each month turned it into a true income fund. Liquid Strategies aims for the overlay to add about 2% a year, and when it works, OVL simply beats the index. It is ahead of VOO since launch, 205% to 190% as of August. When the overlay struggles, it costs a little: in choppy Q3 the overlay lost about 0.04%, and OVL trailed the S&P 500 for the quarter. OVL suits investors who want S&P 500 growth plus a big payout, and who can handle sharper drops in a crash.

ROCY: Active Stock Picking Plus Call Spreads

ROCY holds about 113 large-cap stocks chosen by JPMorgan's data-driven process and sells call spreads for income. A call spread gives back some upside, but less than a plain covered call, because the fund buys back exposure above a higher strike. JPMorgan's stated goal is lower volatility than the US large-cap market.

ROCY launched on March 18, 2026, and has already grown from about $105 million in late March to roughly $880 million. It pays monthly, at a distribution rate around 6.6%. That is lower than GPIX or OVL, which leaves more room for the share price to grow. Technology makes up about 39% of the fund, led by Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, and its worst drop since launch has been just 3.5%. ROCY suits cautious investors who care more about a smooth ride than maximum income, and it has a Nasdaq-100 sister fund, ROCQ, for those who want more tech.

Why They are Beating VOO This Year

2026 has been a stop-start market, and stop-start markets are where options income shines.

• A spring dip, then a big rally. The S&P 500 pulled back in March, then went nearly straight up in the second quarter. OVL returned 15.50% in Q2 versus 15.20% for the S&P 500, because its put spreads paid off as the market climbed away from the strikes.
• A choppy third quarter. The S&P 500 gained just 2.30% in Q3 with sharp swings in rates and oil. Choppy markets keep option premiums rich, so income funds collect more without giving up much.
• An October wobble. Stocks peaked on October 6 and have slid since. As of November 2, GPIX was 2.81% off its high versus 3.46% for SPY. That small cushion is part of why GPIX nosed ahead.

GPIX's low overwrite also matters. Because it wrote calls on only about a third of its portfolio, it did not give away much of the Q2 rally, so it kept pace on the way up and collected premium in the chop.

The Pros

• Real monthly income without selling shares. At current rates, $100,000 split across these funds would throw off roughly $6,600 to $10,500 a year, depending on the mix. VOO pays a fraction of that.
• You have not given up growth this year. GPIX and OVL are both ahead of VOO in 2026, and ROCY has stayed within a few points of the index from launch.
• A smoother ride (GPIX and ROCY). GPIX's worst drop, in the April 2025 sell-off, was 17.50% versus 18.76% for SPY. ROCY's annualized volatility has been 10.4%, with a beta of 0.76. It moves roughly three-quarters as much as the market.
• Tax deferral for US taxable accounts. Much of the payout is classified as return of capital. OVL reports an estimated 100% ROC on recent distributions, and GPIX's 2025 distributions came in around 87% ROC. You do not pay tax on ROC now; it lowers your cost basis instead.
• Reasonable fees for the category. GPIX and ROCY charge 0.29% to 0.35%, well below many older covered call funds.

The Cons and Risks

• One good year is not a track record. GPIX trailed VOO in both 2024 (21.77% vs 24.98%) and 2025 (16.25% vs 17.82%). In a strong, steady bull market, the calls it sells cap part of the upside.
• OVL can fall harder than the market. The put spreads add losses on top of VOO's losses when stocks drop fast. In 2022, OVL lost 22.18% versus 18.17% for VOO.
• Fees add up. VOO costs 0.03%. GPIX costs roughly ten times that, and OVL's 0.79% is more than 25 times as much.
• The yield is not free money. Every distribution comes out of the fund's value. Return of capital lowers your cost basis, which means a bigger taxable gain when you eventually sell. If the fund pays out more than it earns over time, the share price drifts down.
• Income depends on volatility. Quiet markets mean cheaper options, which means less premium to pay out. A long, calm melt-up is the worst case for these funds.
• ROCY is brand new. Seven months of history tells us very little about how it handles a real bear market.
• Expats, check your own tax rules. The return-of-capital advantage is a US tax feature. If you live outside the US like I do, how these distributions are taxed depends on where you are tax resident.

What Other Investors are Saying

Analysts mostly like GPIX; the skeptics are aiming at covered call funds as a whole.

The bulls. Seeking Alpha contributors have rated GPIX a Buy repeatedly this year. A late-October piece credits its low overwrite for putting total return ahead of headline yield, and pegs its return since inception at about 21% a year. An August article makes the case for using it as a core holding, noting it has captured about 90% of the S&P 500's upside. A September write-up aimed at retirees flags the main risk: if volatility falls, so does the income.

The skeptics. 24/7 Wall St. argues GPIX is mostly an index fund charging an active-management fee. Barchart makes the broader point that covered call funds limit your upside while leaving you exposed to most of the downside.

The community. On Reddit, the common defense is that critics compare these funds to the index during bull markets and miss the point: the trade is capped upside for income, not a slow loss of capital.

Want a deeper dive? Rubicon Research's GPIX: One Of The Better S&P 500-Based Income ETFs, published on Seeking Alpha on October 26, is the best recent breakdown of this fund I have found. It explains why GPIX's lower call overwrite, around 30%, puts total return ahead of headline yield, and why the author rates it a Buy for investors who want monthly income with S&P 500 exposure, especially in flat to moderately rising markets. It lines up closely with what I see in the numbers above. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha →

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up through them, The Frugal Expat may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Can You Sell at the Right Time?

Probably not reliably. Which fund beats VOO changes from year to year, and you only find out after the fact.

Source: totalrealreturns.com, total return with dividends reinvested. 2026 YTD: OVL vs VOO to Oct 30, GPIX vs VOO to Nov 2. GPIX launched Oct 2023, so its full years start in 2024.

OVL beat VOO in 2023, 2024 and 2026, tied in 2025, and lost by 4 points in 2022. GPIX trailed in both full years before this one. To profit from switching, you would need to call two turns correctly: when the market gets choppy, and when the next strong rally starts.

That is harder than it sounds:

• Pullbacks are short. A typical 5% dip has historically recovered in about a month. By the time a choppy market is obvious, much of the premium edge has already been earned.
• The warnings never stop. Bank of America noted the S&P 500 has had only one 5% pullback in 2026, versus about three in a typical year, and RBC has flagged a possible 5% to 10% dip. Nobody can tell you whether that happens next month or next year.
• Switching costs money in a taxable account. Selling a winner triggers capital gains. Because return of capital lowers your cost basis, the taxable gain on an income ETF can be bigger than you expect.
• Missing the rebound hurts most. If you move from VOO into a covered call fund right before a rally, the calls cap your recovery.

What I'd do instead: give each fund a job and rebalance on a schedule. In my 3-Bucket Framework, funds like GPIX and OVL live in Bucket 1 (income) and growth funds live in Bucket 3. Set target weights, then rebalance once a year or whenever a bucket drifts more than about 5 points from target. You end up trimming what ran and adding to what lagged, by rule, not by prediction.

Two Alternatives Worth a Look

If the goal is simply to beat VOO, two other funds have done it by a wider margin this year: one for income, one for growth.

SEPI (Shelton Equity Premium Income). An actively managed fund of about 137 dividend-paying mid- and large-cap stocks with a covered call overlay. It was up 18.45% for the year as of October 6, when VOO was up roughly 14%. It pays about 7.9% monthly and charges 0.54%. The catch: it launched in September 2025, so it has barely a year of history and about $200 million in assets.

SPMO (Invesco S&P 500 Momentum). Not an income fund at all. It holds the 100 S&P 500 stocks with the strongest recent price trends. It was up 16.90% for the year as of October 23, versus 12.36% for VOO. But it was also 14% below its June high at that point, which shows how much rougher the ride is. SPMO belongs in a growth bucket, not an income one.

The bottom line

GPIX and OVL beating VOO in 2026 is real, but it is a result of this year's choppy market, not a new law of investing. Buy them for what they are built to do, which is paying you a large, steady monthly income while keeping most of the market's growth, and you will probably be happy. Buy them expecting to beat VOO every year, and you will probably be disappointed.

My take: GPIX is the easiest of the three to own long term, thanks to its low fee and light overwrite. OVL suits investors who want a bigger payout and can stomach deeper drops. ROCY is worth watching, but it needs a bear market on its record before I'd treat it as a core holding.

This post is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Do your own research or speak with a professional before investing.

Sources

• Total Real Returns: GPIX vs SPY, VOO, OVL, SPMO
• Overlay Shares Q3 2026 quarterly review and Q2 2026 review
• OVL fund page
• JPMorgan ROCY fact sheet, Sept 30, 2026
• Dividend Vision: ROCQ vs ROCY
• Dividend.com: GPIX profile
• AAII: GPIX
• 24/7 Wall St.: GPIX fees vs Vanguard
• Seeking Alpha GPIX articles: Oct 26, Sept 23, Aug 17, May 14
• Yahoo Finance: SEPI, Stock Analysis: SEPI