Warren Buffett Doesn't Pay a Dividend. This ETF Targets 15%. What's the Catch?

Berkshire pays no dividend, yet Berkshire-inspired OMAH targets a 15% annual payout. Where the monthly cash comes from — and what investors give up.

OMAH is the Buffett-inspired ETF that owns Berkshire, Apple, American Express and other Berkshire 13F names, then targets a 15% annual distribution with an options overlay. The 15% is a payout target, not a promised return.

Berkshire Hathaway has not paid a cash dividend since 1967. Warren Buffett's argument has been consistent for six decades: every dollar kept inside the company can be compounded into more than a dollar of market value, so shareholders are better off if Berkshire keeps the cash.

Then along came an ETF with the ticker OMAH.

The VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF holds a Berkshire-inspired stock portfolio, layers an actively managed options strategy on top, and targets an annual distribution of 15% of NAV, paid monthly — roughly 1.25% per month. It began trading in March 2025 and has grown to roughly $1.01 billion in assets.

So the fund built on America's most famous non-dividend-payer is itself a high-paying income ETF. Before anything else, get one distinction straight:

OMAH's 15% is a distribution target. It is not a dividend yield, and it is not a promised 15% return.

That distinction is where the entire story lives — and Dividend Vision's own data lets us show exactly what it means in dollars.

OMAH at a glance

Dividend Vision data as of August 7, 2026; SEC yield and expenses per VistaShares. Figures move — check OMAH's live page for current numbers.

What OMAH actually owns

A common misconception — one we have corrected in our own data — is that OMAH is a single-stock fund that just sells calls against Berkshire shares. It isn't.

OMAH's underlying index allocates roughly 10% to Berkshire Hathaway Class B (BRK-B) and builds the rest from the 20 highest-valued U.S.-listed positions in Berkshire's latest 13F filing — ranked by the dollar value of Berkshire's disclosed stake, so names like Apple, American Express, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Chubb and Moody's — rebalanced quarterly. The fund also holds options positions plus cash and Treasuries.

Two things follow from that design:

• It is not affiliated with Warren Buffett or Berkshire Hathaway. It reconstructs a portfolio from public filings; you are not buying an official Berkshire product.
• It lags Berkshire's actual moves. 13F filings arrive weeks after each quarter ends, so by the time OMAH's index sees a change, Berkshire may have already moved on.

Best mental model: a professionally managed income strategy built around selected Berkshire holdings — not Berkshire with a dividend bolted on.

Where the 15% comes from

The stocks OMAH owns pay ordinary dividends, but nowhere near 15%. The gap is manufactured by an actively managed options overlay: the fund sells call options (and defined-risk spreads) against its holdings and collects premium, which becomes the bulk of the monthly payout. The managers can vary strikes, expirations and position sizes with market conditions, so it is more flexible than a mechanical covered-call fund — but the basic bargain is the same:

More spendable cash today in exchange for potentially less capital appreciation tomorrow.

You can see the manufacturing in one comparison. OMAH's annualized distribution rate is about 15%, while its 30-day SEC yield is 0.63%. VistaShares notes that the SEC yield measures net investment income and excludes option income — so the gap shows that dividends and interest alone do not finance the payout; options results, realized gains and/or return of capital supply the balance. The cash is not quietly falling out of Buffett's couch cushions.

For the mechanics of the whole Target 15 family, see our beginner's guide to the VistaShares Target 15 ETFs. This article asks a narrower question: what did OMAH's trade-off actually deliver?

The $10,000 test

Here is what a $10,000 position bought on August 7, 2025 and held through August 7, 2026 looked like — in OMAH, in actual Berkshire, in the dividend-growth benchmark SCHD, and in the established options-income fund JEPQ — with every distribution taken as cash and held:

Computed from August 7, 2025 and August 7, 2026 closing prices and distributions with ex-dates inside that window, held as cash without interest; no taxes or commissions. One year is a snapshot, not a verdict.

Read those two charts together and the whole article is in them:

OMAH and Berkshire finished the year within about $50 of each other — by completely different routes. OMAH's investor collected roughly $1,483 in monthly checks while the shares slipped 2.3%; Berkshire's investor collected nothing while the shares rose 13.1%. Ending wealth: ~$11,257 vs. ~$11,307. Same neighborhood, different route: one fund delivered the experience as cash, the other as price appreciation. One honest caveat — OMAH owns a Berkshire-inspired basket, not BRK.B alone, so this comparison cannot isolate how much of the difference came specifically from the options overlay versus portfolio composition, fees and timing.

The ride differed too. Measured on the reinvested total-return series, OMAH's worst drawdown over the window (−2.9%) was far shallower than Berkshire's (−9.4%) — and an investor spending the income never had to decide when to sell shares. Whatever mix of portfolio and overlay produced it, smaller dips plus a monthly check are a genuinely different experience for someone funding withdrawals — income vs. total return is a real trade-off, not a trick.

But the highest payout was not the best outcome. SCHD, paying under 3%, beat both by a wide margin over this window, and JEPQ — a cheaper options-income fund on a different portfolio — also finished ahead. A 15% distribution rate told you nothing about which fund would make you the most money.

For scale: at OMAH's August 7 price of $18.60 and the $0.23263 monthly rate, $10,000 buys about 537 shares and generates roughly $125 a month (~$1,500 a year) — versus about $25 a month from $10,000 in SCHD. That is the attraction in one box. The rest of this article is the price tag.

So what's the catch?

1. The overlay can sell away a rally

Selling calls means someone else owns the right to your stocks' upside above the strike. In a sharp rally, OMAH keeps the premium but surrenders part of the move — that is not a flaw, it is the mechanism that makes the income. Anyone expecting Berkshire-style compounding plus a 15% payout is ordering two entrées and paying for one.

2. Part of the payout can be your own money coming back

VistaShares estimated that 100% of OMAH's July 2026 distribution was return of capital. That is a preliminary Section 19(a) estimate, not the fund's final year-end tax classification — but the issuer's own announcement warns that ROC may reduce NAV and trading price over time. ROC is not automatically evidence of economic loss: with options funds it often reflects tax accounting, and it defers taxes by reducing your cost basis (once basis reaches zero, further nondividend distributions are generally taxed as capital gains). It becomes a problem when a fund persistently pays out more than its strategy earns and NAV grinds lower. Judge it alongside NAV trend, total return and coverage — our ROC analysis guide shows how.

3. The first audited year shows the trade-off in miniature

For the period from launch through February 28, 2026, the fund reported NAV starting at $20.00, investment operations adding $1.22, distributions of $2.87 (of which $1.36 was classified as return of capital), and NAV ending at $18.35 — yet a positive 6.61% total return with distributions reinvested. Price-watchers saw a fund down 8%; income-watchers saw a fat payout; only total return saw the whole picture. That asymmetry is permanent with funds like this.

4. It costs 0.95% a year to own — BRK.B has no fund-level fee

OMAH's stated annual operating expense ratio is 0.95%; during its first audited period, total expenses ran 0.98% of average net assets, including 0.03% of interest expense. BRK.B has no fund-level expense ratio at all, and SCHD charges 0.06%. On $100,000, OMAH's stated ratio is roughly $950 a year — paying for the options management and the convenience of a monthly check you'd otherwise have to manufacture yourself.

5. The 15% is a target with a 17-month track record

The prospectus describes 15% as an income goal, not a projected return. Payments have been admirably steady so far — but "so far" is under a year and a half. That is useful evidence, not a retirement-length stress test, and the payment can be cut if the strategy can't support it.

Who OMAH is — and isn't — for

Consider OMAH if you want monthly cash flow from Buffett-style holdings, you understand the payout is manufactured from options premium, and you accept capped upside, a ~1% fee and possible return of capital as the price of the check.

Skip it if you want what Buffett actually built — uncapped compounding. Own BRK-B directly and sell shares when you need cash. And if you want income from companies that earn their dividends, a dividend-growth fund like SCHD pays far less but kept far more of this year's upside.

The right answer isn't whichever fund pays the most. It's whichever cash-flow strategy matches the job your portfolio needs to do.

The Dividend Vision verdict

OMAH is neither a magic 15% dividend nor an obvious yield trap. It is an income-conversion strategy: it takes a Berkshire-inspired portfolio and converts some blend of dividends, volatility premium and potential future appreciation into a monthly check. Over the past year that left an investor almost exactly where Berkshire itself did — delivered as roughly $1,483 in cash and a shallower ride instead of share-price growth — though with a basket that isn't Berkshire alone, the overlay can't take all the credit for either.

The question to keep asking is never "does it really pay 15%?" — at the current rate, it does. The question is how much total value is left after it pays you, and whether that beats simply owning the stocks. Track that on Dividend Vision: the fund's payout, NAV trend, and Dividend Vision Distribution Safety Score™ all live on OMAH's ticker page, and the score's methodology is explained here.

Keep exploring:

• OMAH vs SCHD — manufactured yield vs. dividend growth, head to head
• OMAH vs QQQI — two options-income strategies on very different portfolios
• Target-distribution ETFs — how OMAH's payout stacks up against its peers
• When return of capital is fine — and when it isn't

Frequently asked questions

Is OMAH the Buffett-inspired ETF that owns Berkshire, Apple, and Amex?

Yes. OMAH is the VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF: a Buffett-inspired portfolio that holds Berkshire Hathaway plus names such as Apple and American Express from Berkshire's 13F, then targets a 15% annual distribution with an options overlay. The 15% is a payout target, not a promised yield or total return.

Does Berkshire Hathaway pay a dividend?

No. Berkshire's only cash dividend in the modern era was 10 cents per Class A share, paid January 3, 1967. Its policy since has been to retain earnings while management believes retained capital creates more shareholder value than distributing it.

Does OMAH really yield 15%?

OMAH targets an annual distribution of 15% of NAV, paid as roughly 1.25% monthly, and its current distribution rate is approximately that. But the distribution rate annualizes the latest cash payment — it is not a guaranteed yield, and it is not a total return. The fund's 30-day SEC yield, which excludes option income, is under 1%.

Is OMAH just Berkshire Hathaway stock with options?

No. OMAH holds about 10% BRK.B plus the 20 highest-valued U.S.-listed positions in Berkshire's latest 13F filing, along with options, cash and Treasuries. Its performance can differ substantially from Berkshire itself.

Is OMAH affiliated with Warren Buffett?

No. VistaShares builds the portfolio from Berkshire's public regulatory filings. Neither Buffett nor Berkshire Hathaway sponsors or endorses the fund.

Is OMAH's return of capital bad?

Not automatically. With options funds, ROC often reflects tax accounting rather than the fund "handing your money back," and it defers taxes by lowering your cost basis until basis reaches zero (after which further nondividend distributions are generally taxed as capital gains). It turns harmful when distributions persistently exceed what the strategy earns and NAV erodes. Watch it together with NAV trend and total return, not in isolation.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not individualized investment, legal or tax advice. Distribution rates, holdings, expenses, NAV, tax classifications and safety scores change; figures above are snapshots as of August 7, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.