--- title: "First Trust sets FSEP's new cap at 16.68% as September buffers roll" url: "https://etf.net/news/first-trust-sets-fsep-s-new-cap-at-16-68-as-september-buffers-roll-2026-09-22" published_at: "2026-09-22T12:12:58.608Z" updated_at: "2026-09-22T12:12:58.608Z" byline: "ETF.net Research" --- # First Trust sets FSEP's new cap at 16.68% as September buffers roll First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund VIII on September 21, 2026, filed Rule 497 supplements setting a 16.68% pre-fee cap on FSEP for the period ending September 17, 2027. By ETF.net Research. Published Sep 22, 2026. The prior target-outcome year on First Trust’s September buffer series ended Friday, September 18. From the September 19, 2025 close through Friday, the FT Vest U.S. Equity Buffer ETF - September FSEP returned **13.3%**. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY rose **14.8%** on price, through last year’s 14.00% pre-fee cap; SPY’s total return was **16.0%**, and the dividend is not in the FLEX package. The fund’s 10% buffer was unused. On Monday the trust, First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund VIII, filed a Rule 497(e) supplement that started a new period through September 17, 2027, and set a **16.68%** cap, before fees, on FSEP. Last year’s ceiling on the same fund was 14.00%. The paper does not launch these funds. It resets the contract on funds that already trade: a new upside cap and a new options book. Holdings dated Monday already show FLEX options expiring September 17, 2027. ## FSEP and QSPT hold most of the September series The supplement covers eight FT Vest funds in one table. Caps are stated two ways: before fees, and after fees and expenses, excluding brokerage commissions, trading fees, taxes, and extraordinary expenses not in each fund’s management fee. The after-fee figure is the one a holder actually lives with if the fund reaches the ceiling and nothing else hits the NAV. Together the eight held $5.14 billion as of Tuesday. Four of them hold $4.80 billion of that. Chart: Two funds hold **most** of September’s $5.14 billion Table: Fund, Tracks, Cap before fees, Cap after fees, Assets FSEP seeks SPY’s price return, up to the cap, with a buffer against the first 10% of losses; QSPT does the same versus QQQ. Deep-buffer DSEP absorbs the first 5% of SPY losses, then buffers the next 25 percentage points. Moderate-buffer GSEP seeks a 15% buffer. Monday’s holdings put those depths in the new FLEX strikes: FSEP’s downside put is struck 10% below Friday’s SPY close of $761.69, DSEP’s puts bracket a 5% to 30% zone, and GSEP’s put sits 15% below. The other four September funds in the supplement are enhance-and-moderate XSEP, international YSEP, equal-weight RSSE, and emerging-markets TSEP. XSEP seeks roughly twice SPY’s price return, up to an 11.19% pre-fee cap, and a 15% buffer, deeper than FSEP’s 10%. ## QSPT used last year’s cap too QSPT returned **16.5%** against a 16.97% pre-fee cap. QQQ’s price rose **20.4%**. The Nasdaq-100 fund used essentially all of last year’s room and still trailed the reference by about four percentage points. Chart: September buffers closed **near their caps**; QQQ ran past XSEP returned 8.79% against a 9.58% pre-fee cap. Caps on FSEP, QSPT, and YSEP all came in above last year’s ceilings. Monday was the first session of the new year. SPY closed at $773.50, up 1.55% from Friday’s $761.69, the reference printed in FSEP’s new options. FSEP itself closed at $57.55, up 0.66%. The stated 16.68% cap is the outcome for shares bought at the start of the period and held to September 17, 2027. Shares bought after Monday do not receive that full cap. ## QQBF’s three-month cap is 3.26% The same trust on Monday filed a Rule 497(k) summary prospectus for the FT Vest Nasdaq-100 Quarterly 15 Buffer ETF QQBF, listed on Cboe BZX. The fund [was cleared to list](https://etf.net/news/first-trust-nasdaq-100-quarterly-15-buffer-etf-is-cleared-to-list-2026-09-14) in a September 11 registration. Monday’s paper is the first published outcome: it seeks QQQ’s price return up to a **3.26%** cap, buffering the first 15% of losses, from September 21 through December 18. After fees the cap is 3.04%. The management fee and total annual fund operating expenses are both **0.90%**. That 3.26% is the entire upside the fund will seek until December 18, against a 0.90% fee. It is the short-dated end of the same First Trust buffer shelf that just reset FSEP with a 16.68% one-year cap. A companion Rule 497(c) and 497(k) named the FT Vest Nasdaq-100 Dual Directional Buffer ETF - September DQSE. For the same September 21, 2026–September 17, 2027 window it seeks, before fees, either QQQ’s positive price return up to an 18.75% cap or a gain if QQQ falls, up to a 10% inverse-performance threshold, with a 10% buffer on losses beyond that threshold. ## September is a crowded shelf FSEP sits in a 77-fund group of S&P 500 buffers in the 9-12% depth range. It is also the largest single line in the FT Vest Laddered Buffer ETF BUFR, which holds $10.64 billion across twelve monthly 10% buffers; FSEP was 8.40% of that fund on Monday, a $895 million sleeve. Innovator’s September series reset three weeks earlier. The Innovator U.S. Equity Power Buffer ETF PSEP, a 15% buffer on an S&P 500 ETF for September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2027, started that period with a 15.01% cap before fees and $1.10 billion in assets. The Innovator U.S. Equity Buffer ETF BSEP, a 9% buffer on the same reference and calendar, started at 19.75% before fees and holds $409 million. The products are not substitutes: different start dates, different buffer depths, and different fees (PSEP and BSEP charge 0.79%; FSEP charges 0.85%). They are the September vintage a holder would put next to First Trust’s new numbers. For a holder who stays in FSEP through September 17, 2027, the extra room in the new 16.68% pre-fee cap, 15.83% after fees, is the change in the contract. Last year’s 13.3% would have left that room unused. That extra room is unused unless SPY’s price return again exceeds 14.00%. Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/first-trust-sets-fsep-s-new-cap-at-16-68-as-september-buffers-roll-2026-09-22. Please cite the page URL.