Income Safety Research
Is IWMI's Distribution Safe?
IWMI currently carries a Distribution Safety Score™ of 84 (Safe), and its score history begins October 28, 2026, too recently to show a trend. The main thing weighing on the score is covered price decline — share price down 2.3% over 12 months even though distributions kept the total return positive — a slipping price makes the payout harder to sustain. This is a model rating of observed payout data, not proof of distribution coverage or principal safety. Input completeness is medium; missing inputs can limit the assessment.
Frequently asked questions
Is IWMI safe?
IWMI has a Distribution Safety Score of 84/100 (Safe), with medium input completeness. This model rating is not proof of distribution coverage or principal safety. Review the payout record, total returns, holdings, and missing data; future distributions and prices can fall.
Is IWMI's distribution sustainable?
Model score: IWMI scores 84/100 (Safe) on the Distribution Safety Score, and its score history begins October 28, 2026, too recently to show a trend. Cash paid, trailing 12 months: $7.24 per share vs $6.91 the prior twelve months — up 4.7%, on today's share count. Return of capital: No ingested distribution-character estimate; ROC is unknown rather than assumed to be zero. Total return vs cash paid: Since 2024-06-25, total return with distributions reinvested is +35.3% (13.7% annualized), against $17.21 per share paid out. A positive total return means the payout has not, so far, consumed the shares' value on net. Whether that is sustainable depends on the underlying's path and the manager's options overlay, which no score can forecast — treat this as evidence, not a verdict.
What does an IWMI Distribution Safety Score™ mean?
The score summarizes observed payout history, price behavior, structure, and track record under Dividend Vision's rules. It is not a prediction or a guarantee against a future cut, and missing inputs can limit the assessment.
Distribution Safety Score™
Score history
Readings recorded on the day, from October 28, 2026. Gaps mean the fund was not yet scorable.
What supports the score
- an unbroken payment streak of 28 months
- trailing-12-month payouts up 4.7% vs the prior year
What weighs on the score
- Covered price decline (−2.3 points): Share price down 2.3% over 12 months even though distributions kept the total return positive — a slipping price makes the payout harder to sustain
- Manufactured income (−2 points): Income from selling options
- Short track record (−2 points): Only 2.3 years of distribution history
Is IWMI's distribution sustainable?
"Is IWMI's distribution sustainable?" is the question behind most searches that land here. There is no honest yes/no: an option-income fund's payout is set by the manager each period and funded by premium, gains, or principal in a mix that changes with the underlying. What the data can say is whether the current payout is being earned or eroded:
- Model score. IWMI scores 84/100 (Safe) on the Distribution Safety Score, and its score history begins October 28, 2026, too recently to show a trend.
- Cash paid, trailing 12 months. $7.24 per share vs $6.91 the prior twelve months — up 4.7%, on today's share count.
- Return of capital. No ingested distribution-character estimate; ROC is unknown rather than assumed to be zero.
- Total return vs cash paid. Since 2024-06-25, total return with distributions reinvested is +35.3% (13.7% annualized), against $17.21 per share paid out. A positive total return means the payout has not, so far, consumed the shares' value on net.
The sections below show each of those inputs in full — the score's factor breakdown, the payment record, price and NAV trend, return of capital, and drawdowns — so you can weigh them yourself. A high yield that is being paid out of principal is not a cut yet, but it is the pattern that precedes one; see NAV erosion and spotting yield traps.
Distribution history
IWMI has paid 29 distributions since 2024-06-26, totaling $17.21 per share. Trailing-12-month distributions total $7.24 per share, up 4.7% from $6.91 in the prior 12 months. The fund's most recent payments show 2 consecutive declines.
Distribution history through October 21, 2026.
Payments by year
| Year | Payments | Total / share |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 7 | $4.30 |
| 2025 | 12 | $6.84 |
| 2026 (year to date) | 10 | $6.07 |
Last 12 payments
| Date | Amount |
|---|---|
| 2026-10-21 | $0.57 |
| 2026-09-16 | $0.61 |
| 2026-08-19 | $0.64 |
| 2026-07-22 | $0.63 |
| 2026-06-16 | $0.63 |
| 2026-05-20 | $0.60 |
| 2026-04-22 | $0.61 |
| 2026-03-18 | $0.57 |
| 2026-02-18 | $0.60 |
| 2026-01-21 | $0.61 |
| 2025-12-24 | $0.60 |
| 2025-11-26 | $0.57 |
* 2026 is year-to-date, not a full year.
Price trend and NAV context
Excluding distributions, the share price is -2.3% over one year. The most recent NAV on file is $49.49 (as of November 4, 2026), and the 52-week trading range is $45.80–$53.65. Falling prices alongside distributions warrant review, but price alone cannot establish payout coverage, tax character, or investment performance. Compare total returns and the fund's reports as well as the pattern covered in NAV erosion.
Dividend Vision does not currently publish a full NAV time series on this page. The price-only readings exclude distributions and are not a NAV total-return series.
Price-return data through November 5, 2026; NAV uses its own date above.
Total return vs distributions
Since inception (2024-06-25), IWMI's total return with distributions reinvested is +35.3% (13.7% annualized). Over the same period it has paid out $17.21 per share in cash distributions — a high headline yield is not the same thing as a high total return, because price change eats into (or adds to) what you keep.
Return of capital
Return of capital (ROC) is a tax classification that generally reduces the shareholder's cost basis. It does not by itself establish an economic loss or identify the cash source. Dividend Vision has no ingested distribution-character estimate for IWMI, so ROC is unknown rather than assumed to be zero and this page does not guess at one. The fund's annual tax documents are the definitive source. How ROC works — and when it is and isn't a warning sign — is covered in return of capital analysis.
Drawdown and risk
Over the past year IWMI's deepest peak-to-trough decline (max drawdown) was -8.4%. Its beta versus the broad market is 1.0582 — see what beta measures.
Volatility, Sharpe, and Sortino require full price-bar history that this page's offline data set does not include, so they are omitted here rather than estimated. The comparison pages compute them from bar data when available.
Price-risk data through November 5, 2026.
Higher-scoring alternatives
Selection criteria: candidates come from the same hand-curated, same-strategy peer set used by Best IWMI Alternatives, filtered to funds whose current Distribution Safety Score is strictly higher than IWMI's, ranked by score. Never ranked by yield alone.
Methodology, sources, and limits
The Distribution Safety Score is a rules-based 0–100 rating computed by Dividend Vision from a fund's payout history, price behavior, structure, and track record; the full factor list and scoring rules are documented in the methodology article. It describes the current state of observable data. It is not a prediction or a guarantee of future distributions, and nothing on this page is investment advice.
- Score & factor engine: method version 1.11 (score computed November 7, 2026)
- Score history: readings through November 7, 2026
- Distribution history: through October 21, 2026; EODHD series exported 2026-10-22
- NAV point: effective November 4, 2026; retrieval time is not used as its effective date
- Total returns: through November 5, 2026, computed 2026-11-06 against SPY, QQQ
This page is generated from Dividend Vision's data pipeline and reviewed editorially. Page freshness summary: the newest source date on this page is November 7, 2026. Each figure keeps the field-level date above; this summary does not imply that older fields share it.
How does IWMI behave inside your portfolio?
A fund's safety profile changes in context — overlap, concentration, and income mix shift when it sits next to your other holdings. Upload your portfolio to see its combined Distribution Safety Score and projected income.
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