Weekly Payouts from Volatility? Will Rhind on GraniteShares YieldBOOST ETFs

In this episode of Lead-Lag Live, I sit down with William Rhind, Founder and CEO of GraniteShares, to dig into the firm’s YieldBOOST ETF lineup, a strategy designed to generate high weekly distributions by selling options on volatile assets like Tesla, Bitcoin, and Coinbase.

We break down how these funds work, the real risks behind the high yields, and why demand for weekly-paying income ETFs is surging in today’s market.

In this episode:

- How Yield Boost ETFs generate double, and triple-digit yields
- Why buying downside protection makes this different from traditional covered calls
- What NAV erosion is —and how these ETFs mitigate it
- Weekly distributions explained: frequency, payouts, and investor demand
- What’s next in the Yield Boost lineup, and how you can follow the latest launches

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yield boost ETFs are a family of ETFs from Granite
shares that sell options togenerate weekly high income or
high yields.
Cause was selling options thatare weekly options, it made
sense to also align that withthe distribution so that we're
paying a weekly distribution toinvestors.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm your host, Melanie Schaefer.
Welcome to Lead Leg Live Now.
Fresh inflation data recentlydropped.
Well, technically, it spiked,with the producer price index
jumping 0.9% in July, thesharpest monthly move since June
2022.
Year over year, prices climbed3.3%, the biggest gain since
February.
It's another sign that thetraditional economic playbook

(00:55):
might be breaking down and whileanalysts scramble to interpret
conflicting signals, my guesttoday, William Rind, founder and
CEO of Granite Shares, is hereto break down exactly what's
driving the markets right nowand where investors might find
opportunities.
Thanks so much for joining metoday, Will.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Thank you for having me, melanie, pleasure to be here
.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
So, just to get started, what exactly are yield
boost ETFs and why do you thinkthey've become so popular?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
they've become so popular.
Yield boost ETFs are a familyof ETFs from Granite shares that
sell options to generate aweekly high income or high
yields.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
So what sort of yields can investors
realistically expect from them?

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, so the yields are generated by selling options
on different underlying ETFs.
In the case of yield boost, thereason why the yield can in
some cases be extremely high isbecause we're selling options on
underlying ETFs that themselvesare leveraged, and those
underlying ETFs can be eitherETFs on broad indices such as

(02:02):
S&P 500 or NASDAQ, or individualunderlyings like stocks, Tesla,
Nvidia or assets such asBitcoin and, depending on the
volatility of the underlying,will determine a lot in terms of
the yield.
So if you're looking at abroader index, those kind of

(02:24):
yields might be in the region of, say, 50% per annum on an
annualized basis and on thesingle underlyings, that could
be anywhere from 100% in thecase of something like a Bitcoin
to.
I think the highest one we haveat the moment is COYY, which is
based on Coinbase, theunderlying crypto stock, and

(02:46):
that's about 180% on anannualized basis.
So it can be a big differencedepending on the volatility of
the underlying.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Can you talk a little bit about how this strategy
works behind the scenes?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, absolutely so.
In essence, it's a bull spread,a put spread, which means in
simplistic terms that, on theone hand, we're selling a put
option on the underlying ETF andthat is being used to generate
the premium or the income thatgets distributed to investors.

(03:19):
Now, because these underlyingsare volatile, as we mentioned,
and hence the reason why theseare able to generate such high
yields, is because we're takingadvantage of that volatility.
At the same time as we sell theput option, we also buy a put
option on the underlying,typically a little bit out of
the money, and what that meansis that that provides some

(03:41):
downside protection in case theunderlying goes down.
One hand to generate yield orgenerate income, and then buying
options to give some downsideprotection in the event that the
underlying goes down.

(04:03):
And that is really the strategy.
And, of course, every week weare paying out that
distributionally yield.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Okay, so you've talked a little bit about how
the ETFs offer protection fromdownside, and but you also
mentioned volatility, which canscare some investors.
What about NAV erosion?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so I think when it comes to strategies like
yield boost and options-basedincome more broadly, you're
effectively taking advantage ofvolatility in the market because
when you sell an option, you'reeffectively selling volatility,
and so when you're a seller ofanything, you want to be sort of
doing that in an environmentwhere the underlying is high.

(04:46):
So the asset, if you will, isvolatility is an asset.
You sell that high versus lowand in that you're generating
that yield.
Now, nav erosion and theconcept of that comes from
strategies in the market that donot have any protection against
the downside.
So typically those are coveredcall ETF type strategies which

(05:08):
don't offer, typically, anyprotection against a fall in the
underlying assets value.
And that's why, with YieldBoost, what's unique about YieldBoost
is not only are we takingadvantage of the volatility by
selling options, but we're alsobuying put options to help
protect against some of thatdownside if there is a fall, of
course, in value of theunderlying asset.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Right, and so you mentioned this briefly.
But how often do investorsreceive distributions?
How does that work?
How?

Speaker 1 (05:36):
often do investors receive distributions?
How does that work?
Yeah, so they're all weeklypayers, which means that the
distribution is paid out once aweek, and that's something
that's become very popular.
Typically, some otherstrategies distribute once a
month or even less frequently,sometimes once a year, but with

(05:57):
YieldBoost, because we'reselling options that are weekly
options, it made sense to alsoalign that with the distribution
, so that we're paying a weeklydistribution to investors.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, and so well.
What kind of exposures arecurrently available through the
Yield Boost lineup?

Speaker 1 (06:16):
It's really a number of different exposures, ranging
from popular indices such as theNASDAQ and or S&P to single
assets.
I would say that, on the singleasset side, those have been the
most popular and those provideexposure to underlying indirect
exposure to things like Tesla orNvidia in terms of stocks, and

(06:39):
Coinbase now, which is ourlatest offering, and then
Bitcoin itself as well.
So, different underlyings,different single asset
underlyings and broaddiversified underlyings, and
then, obviously, with the yieldboost range, we'll be rolling
out more as time goes on.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, so that's what I was going to ask you.
Next, you mentioned Coinbase,but will we be seeing any more
yield boost ETFs from Graniteshares in the near future?

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, absolutely so.
We originally filed for 20funds, which currently we have
six in the market, and so we'reactively working on launching
more into the market kind of asquickly as we can.
So we're trying to bring outmore underlyings and, of course,
you're as welcome feedback fromanybody in terms of what

(07:29):
particular underlyings that theywould like to see yield boost
strategies on.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, and finally Will.
Before we wrap up, where canviewers follow you and Granite
Shares on social media to keepup with your latest launches and
your insights?

Speaker 1 (07:43):
We're active on most of the major social media
platforms, namely X and LinkedIn.
I think the best sort of waythat people typically interact
with us is on X, where wepublish the weekly distributions
, publish the press release, thedistributions amount and that's
the Granite Shares handle on X.

(08:03):
So a lot of people, I think,prefer to keep up with the news
that way.
Also, on our website,clearlygranitesharescom, we post
all the information and thatwill be the most comprehensive
as well.
But I think X is probably theplace where we see the majority
of investors sort of interactingwith our content.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, thanks again for joining me Will, and thanks
to everyone for watching.
Be sure to like, share andsubscribe for more episodes of
Lead Leg Live.
I'm Melanie Schaefer.
See you next time you.