HACKY: A New Cybersecurity Income ETF Worth Watching?

HACKY launched on January 21, 2026, and is designed to combine cybersecurity exposure with a covered-call strategy.

At the time of my analysis, the ETF was trading around $29.49, had approximately $4.43 million in assets under management, and charged a 0.65% expense ratio. It pays distributions monthly.

The underlying exposure comes from the Prime Cyber Defense Index, giving investors access to a broad collection of cybersecurity companies. HACKY then adds a covered-call overlay designed to generate option premium and distribute income to shareholders.

The trade-off is the same one you see with other covered-call ETFs: I potentially give up some upside in exchange for regular income.

So far, the combination has been interesting.

HACKY was up approximately 25.68% in total return year-to-date, compared with roughly 11.9% for the S&P 500 at the time of the analysis.

But there's an important caveat: HACKY had only been around for about seven months.

That's enough data to get my attention, but nowhere near enough to establish a long-term track record.

HACKY's yield can look confusing depending on which platform you're using.

Seeking Alpha showed approximately 7.88%, while Snowball Analytics showed around 15.8% based on annualized recent distributions.

The difference comes largely from how the platforms calculate yield. HACKY doesn't yet have a full 12 months of distribution history, so trailing-yield calculations can produce a very different number from a forward-looking annualized estimate.

What matters more to me is the actual distribution history.

Since launch, monthly payments have generally fallen between approximately $0.32 and $0.42 per share. The distributions aren't perfectly identical, but that's normal for covered-call strategies because option premiums fluctuate with market conditions and volatility.

So far, I don't see the kind of dramatic distribution swings that would immediately concern me.

More importantly, the fund's price has also increased while distributions have continued.

That's one of the things I look for with income ETFs: I want to see income being generated without the underlying asset consistently losing value.

Seven months doesn't prove that HACKY can maintain this balance, but the early results are encouraging.

HACKY isn't simply an income ETF. It's a concentrated bet on a sector I already believe has strong long-term fundamentals.

Approximately 93% of the fund is invested in technology, with the remainder primarily in industrials. It holds 76 positions, but the portfolio is still relatively concentrated.

Some of the largest holdings include Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Cisco, Broadcom, Okta, Cloudflare, F5, Tenable, and Varonis.

I already own several of these companies directly in my other portfolios, including Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Broadcom.

That makes HACKY particularly interesting to me.

I'm already bullish on the underlying businesses, and now I'm getting another way to participate in their growth while potentially generating monthly income.

The fundamental thesis is straightforward: as AI and digital infrastructure expand, cybersecurity becomes increasingly important.

More connected systems mean a larger attack surface. More AI infrastructure means more systems that need protection. And as businesses and governments become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure, cybersecurity isn't something they can simply decide to stop spending money on.

That's why I view cybersecurity as more than just another technology trend.

The more valuable the digital infrastructure becomes, the more important protecting it becomes.

There are several reasons I'm not treating HACKY as a core holding yet.

The biggest is size.

With only about $4.43 million in assets, HACKY is tiny compared with established ETFs like SPYI or QQQI. Trading volume was also relatively low, which can create liquidity concerns and wider bid-ask spreads.

The second issue is its age.

Seven months isn't enough to know how the fund will behave during a major market correction or prolonged period of volatility. We haven't seen the covered-call strategy operate through enough different market environments yet.

Then there's concentration.

With roughly 93% technology exposure, HACKY isn't diversification for me. If technology gets hit hard, HACKY will likely get hit too. The covered-call strategy may provide some downside cushion, but this isn't a hedge.

That's why I currently treat it as an income-engine test allocation, not a core portfolio position.

I'm also monitoring the 0.65% expense ratio. For a traditional broad-market ETF, that would be relatively expensive. But compared with other actively managed covered-call strategies, it's much more reasonable.

For now, the combination of a small asset base, short history, and concentrated sector exposure means HACKY still has to earn my confidence.

HACKY is exactly the type of fund I find interesting—but also the type of fund I don't want to blindly buy just because the yield looks attractive.

It's new, small, concentrated, and unproven.

At the same time, it combines three things I already care about: cybersecurity exposure, strong underlying companies, and monthly income.

That's why I've started with roughly $2,000 rather than making it a major position. I'm watching how the distributions develop, how the fund performs through different market conditions, how liquidity improves as assets grow, and whether the underlying cybersecurity sector continues to strengthen.

If those pieces continue moving in the right direction, I may build the position over time.

For now, HACKY's job is simple: earn my confidence while earning income.

The bigger lesson is that income investing doesn't have to mean abandoning sectors you believe in. Sometimes the opportunity is finding a way to turn your conviction in a strong sector into cash flow—while being honest about the risks that come with it.