Two of the market's most popular income ETFs compared side-by-side. See which one fits your yield strategy.
What this means: Both JEPI and JEPQ fall intoTier 4: Harvest. This suggests they share a similar risk profile and volatility expectation.
| Metric | JEPI | JEPQ |
|---|---|---|
| Total Return (1Y) | 5.66% | 16.54% |
| NAV Change (1Y) | -1.38% | 6.84% |
| Max Drawdown | -14.35% | -23.48% |
| Beta | 0.65 | 0.85 |
* Returns include dividend reinvestment. Drawdown calculates peak-to-trough decline over trailing 12 months.
JPMorgan launched JEPI in 2020 and JEPQ in 2022, and together they've attracted over $50B in combined assets. Both use Equity Linked Notes (ELNs) to implement covered call strategies — but they target very different indexes, and that distinction matters enormously to income investors.
JEPI holds S&P 500 stocks with a defensive tilt — it weights toward lower-volatility names like healthcare and consumer staples. JEPQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, which is 50%+ technology. This index choice drives everything else: volatility, yield, drawdown behavior, and sector risk.
JEPQ yields approximately 2 percentage points more than JEPI because Nasdaq-100 options carry higher premiums — the market charges more for protection on a volatile index. That premium is your compensation for accepting more risk. In the 2022 bear market, JEPQ declined roughly 10 percentage points more than JEPI peak-to-trough.
Both ETFs sell calls, which caps upside participation. In the 2023-2024 bull market, JEPQ captured more of the Nasdaq's gains than JEPI captured of the S&P 500's — but both lagged their parent indexes significantly. If you expect a multi-year bull market, index funds will outperform both.
Choose JEPI if:
Choose JEPQ if:
Every investor has a unique risk profile. Use our Portfolio Intelligence tool to see the impact of adding these ETFs to your holdings.