REX Shares has launched an ETF that bundles leveraged covered-call strategies tied to nine stocks, including crypto-linked firms Coinbase and Microstrategy, into a single income-focused product. The fund, trading under ticker GIF, holds equal-weighted positions in existing REX ETFs, which use covered calls to generate premium income. Meanwhile, 21Shares listed an exchange-traded product tracking Microstrategy’s STRC preferred shares, as companies add them to their treasuries.
US-based asset manager REX Shares has launched an exchange-traded fund bundling leveraged covered-call strategies tied to nine individual stocks. The income-focused product, trading under ticker GIF, includes crypto-linked names Coinbase and Microstrategy among its holdings.
According to the announcement, the fund holds equal-weighted positions in REX’s existing single-stock Growth & Income ETFs. Each underlying ETF targets about 1.25x exposure to its equity while writing covered calls on a portion of the portfolio to generate option premium income.
Covered call premiums are the upfront payments a fund collects for selling options on stocks it already owns. This generates income in exchange for capping some of the shares’ upside potential.
The ETF holds equal-weighted exposure to nine REX funds tied to Nvidia, Tesla, Microstrategy, Coinbase, Robinhood, Palantir, CoreWeave, Eli Lilly and Walmart. This spans crypto-linked equities, technology, AI, healthcare and retail sectors.
The launch comes amid a week of new allocations tied to Microstrategy-linked securities. On Wednesday, 21Shares introduced an exchange-traded product giving European investors exposure to STRC, Microstrategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock.
Also on Wednesday, Microstrategy said Prevalon Energy and Anchorage Digital had allocated portions of their corporate treasuries to STRC. The companies did not disclose the size of their positions.
Microstrategy describes STRC as a digital credit instrument with an 11.25% annual dividend. It is part of its broader effort to issue fixed-income securities tied to its Bitcoin holdings.
Since adopting its Bitcoin treasury strategy in August 2020, Microstrategy has become the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. It reports holding 717,722 BTC, or about 3.4% of the fixed 21 million supply.
Despite demand for Microstrategy-linked securities, the company’s shares have fallen alongside Bitcoin’s price. The stock is down more than 60% over the past six months and about 50% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Microstrategy has also emerged as the most heavily shorted large-cap US stock on Goldman Sachs’ latest ranking. This ranking is based on short interest relative to market value.
