ETF Evaluator: Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF () Follow This ETF

Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF Overview

Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF (SPYT) is an actively managed U.S. Equity Large Blend exchange-traded fund (ETF). Defiance ETFs LLC launched the ETF in 2024.

The investment seeks current income; the secondary investment objective being exposure to the performance of the S&P 500 Index. The fund’s strategy involves holding shares of unaffiliated passively managed ETFs that seek to track the performance of the index (“Index ETFs”) and selling daily credit call spreads on the index. Its daily credit call spread strategy consists of selling a call option and simultaneously buying another call option at a higher strike price for income generation. The fund is non-diversified.

About Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF (SPYT)

There are 3 members of the management team with an average tenure of 1.20 years: Scott Snyder (2025), Jay Pestrichelli (2024) and Matt Brandt (2025). Management tenure is more important for actively managed ETFs than passive index ETFs.

The ETF has 1 primary benchmark: S&P 500 (TR) (1970) index with a weighting of 100%. Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has 7 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 101.9% of the ETF’s assets. The ETF meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a nondiversified fund. The ETF is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF is part of the Equity global asset class and is within the U.S. Equity ETF group. Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has 0.5% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 98.9% There is 0.5% allocated to foreign stock, and 0.0% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 0.0% (0.0% domestic bond, 0.0% foreign bond and 0.0% convertible bond). Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has 0.6% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $155 million in total assets, which is below the $13 billion average for the Large Blend category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

SPYT Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF expense ratio is high compared to funds in the Large Blend category. Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has an expense ratio of 0.92%, which is 122% higher than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a F. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has a portfolio turnover rate of 31%, which indicates that it holds its assets around / 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 158% for the Large Blend category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF returned 0.3%, which earned it a grade of B, as the Large Blend category had an average return of -0.8%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all ETFs in that category.

Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF has a trailing yield of 16.66%, which is above the 1.16% category average. The fund normally distributes its income monthly and its capital gains annually.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

Defiance S&P 500 Target Income ETF Grades

Year to date, the ETF has returned 9.3%, 0.3 percentage points worse than the category, which translates into a grade of D. The fund has returned 16.4% over the past year (grade of D).

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