MART vs XTR

MARTCAllianzIM U.S. Equity Buffer10 Mar ETF

XTRCGlobal X S&P 500 Tail Risk ETF

In short

MART A March-reset buffer fund: it absorbs the first 10% of a year's drop in an S&P 500 ETF and caps the upside for that stretch in exchange. Standard recipe for the category, priced a shade under the typical rival.

XTR Most downside-protection ETFs sell away your upside to pay for it. XTR pays cash instead: it owns the S&P 500 stocks and buys 10% out-of-the-money puts every quarter, leaving the upside uncapped.

Stated mandate

MART The Fund seeks to provide downside-loss protection covering the first 10% of losses on its Underlying ETF, before fees and expenses.

XTR The Fund seeks to track the performance of the Cboe S&P 500 Tail Risk Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• MART The contract is legible: over each one-year period starting in March, the first 10% of the S&P 500 ETF's losses are absorbed before fees and expenses, with upside capped at a level set that March.
• A 0.74% fee undercuts the typical S&P 500 buffer fund, which matters in a wrapper where the cushion is measured before fees and expenses.
• No exotic reference: the fund tracks outcomes against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, and the combination of plain benchmark and low fee puts it in the upper half of a crowded buffer cohort.

• XTR No cap on the gains. The hedge is bought with cash rather than funded by selling calls, so index rallies come through less the put premium and fees.sec.gov
• Costs 0.25%, well under half of what the defined-outcome funds it competes with typically charge for downside protection.
• Owns the roughly 500 S&P 500 stocks themselves, with the put position layered on top, rather than wrapping the index in a stack of options.sec.gov
• Rules-based and mechanical: puts are bought at 10% below the prevailing index level each quarter and held to expiration, with no manager guessing at timing.sec.gov

Worth knowing

• MART Small asset base, light volume. Spreads can widen, so limit orders and a glance at intraday value matter more here than with a mega-cap index fund.
• Buy mid-period and you inherit whatever buffer and cap are left, not the headline 10%. The design lines up cleanly only from one March reset to the next.
• Income isn't part of the package; returns show up in price. Cheaper buffer builds exist in the same cohort, like PSFF at 0.10% and BUFP at 0.50%.

• XTR Protection starts about 10% down and resets quarterly, so garden-variety dips are absorbed in full and the gap widens if the market rallies mid-quarter.sec.gov
• Insurance is not free. The quarterly premium is a steady cost against plain index exposure, and in calm markets the puts expire worthless.sec.gov
• A small fund that trades thinly, so limit orders matter and subscale products carry more risk of being closed than the category's giants.

Full MART profile⁠

Full XTR profile⁠