BENJ vs FIAX

BENJAHorizon Landmark ETF

FIAXDNicholas Fixed Income Alternative ETF

In short

BENJ Most option-income Treasury funds sell calls against long bonds. BENJ flips it: hold one- to three-month T-bills as ballast, then run an actively managed options book on US stocks, ETFs and indexes.

FIAX Most options-income funds write calls on stocks. FIAX holds short-term U.S. Treasuries and runs a defined-risk options overlay on ETFs and indexes for the income, then measures itself against the Agg. A bond-shaped wrapper around an options engine.

Stated mandate

BENJ The Fund seeks total return through active management, investing primarily in one- to three-month U.S. Treasury bills and related ETFs while using options strategies on a broad range of domestic equity securities, ETFs, and equity indices.

FIAX The Fund seeks current income through short-term U.S. Treasury fixed income securities combined with a defined-risk option premium strategy using options on ETFs and securities indices.

Why people hold it

• BENJ Costs 0.40%, under the 0.58% median for its option-income Treasury cohort and well below OVT at 0.80%.
• The bond sleeve is one- to three-month T-bills, so there is no 20+ year duration bet built in the way there is with long-bond buy-write peers like TLTW and TLTI.
• Fully active, not rule-locked: the manager can write options across single stocks, ETFs and equity indexes rather than one fixed index overlay.
• Sits in the upper half of a small, crowded peer group of Treasury-plus-options funds.

• FIAX The income engine is options, not coupons: short-term Treasury holdings paired with a defined-risk option premium strategy on ETFs and securities indexes.
• The Treasury sleeve is short-term, so interest-rate sensitivity sits far below the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index it benchmarks against.
• Distributions are paid monthly, and the fund has been running live since its 2022 launch.

Worth knowing

• BENJ Launched in 2025, so the track record is short and there is not much history yet to judge how the options book behaves across different markets.
• Thinly traded, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads than the expense ratio alone suggests.
• Built for total return, not a set payout calendar. It has not run on the monthly-distribution cadence common elsewhere in option-income land.

• FIAX The 0.97% expense ratio sits at the pricier end of the options-income group, where index-overlay peers like LQDW charge 0.34%.
• It trades thinly, so bid-ask spreads are typically wider than the heavily traded names in its category and order execution carries more weight.
• The options overlay is actively managed rather than a mechanical index formula, so outcomes depend on the manager's positioning, not a published rulebook.

Full BENJ profile⁠

Full FIAX profile⁠