Best Performing ETFs of the Year
It's been tough to beat SPY, but a number of ETFs have done it.
With days left before the second quarter ends, U.S. stocks are on track to close out the first half of the year with big gains.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) returned a whopping 15.3% in the year-to-date period through June 21, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) delivered a 17.4% gain.
Much has been written about the narrow breadth of the U.S. stock market, with just a handful of stocks powering the market’s ascent.
That’s reflected in this year’s ETF performance: Over 90% of U.S.-listed ETFs are underperforming the S&P 500 (though not all of them are stock funds and shouldn’t be benchmarked to the index).
Still, that means that there are nearly 300 ETFs which are outperforming SPY—some by a lot.
That includes the T-Rex 2X Long NVIDIA Daily Target ETF (NVDX) and the GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF (NVDL), which have soared 454% and 399%, respectively, since the start of the year.
Nvidia, Crypto ETFs Lead Top Performers
Nvidia, the posterchild for the AI boom, has been on a tear since 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot trained using Nvidia’s chips.
But even if you strip out leveraged ETFs, the top performing ETF of this year is tied to Nvidia—the YieldMax NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF (NVDY), with a 95.6% gain.
NVDY generates monthly income by selling covered call options on Nvidia stock.
Another ETF to benefit from Nvidia’s surge is the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), which is up 51.5% year-to-date. The ETF currently has just under 20% of its portfolio allocated to the AI giant.
Outside of those two funds, the top 10 best-performing non-leveraged ETFs of the year are all crypto-related.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the Valkyrie Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF (BTF), and the ProShares Ether Strategy ETF (EETH) are up anywhere from 46% to 65% this year.
For a full list of this year’s 10 best-performing non-leveraged U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds, see the table below:
Top 10 Best Performing ETFs YTD 2024
| Ticker | Name | YTD Performance | Weekly Performance | AUM ($, mm) |
| NVDY | YieldMax NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF | 95.64% | -3.12% | 746.76 |
| GBTC | Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF | 64.76% | -3.68% | 18,095.80 |
| SMH | VanEck Semiconductor ETF | 51.48% | -2.82% | 25,274.64 |
| BTF | Valkyrie Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF | 48.10% | -2.89% | 51.34 |
| EETH | ProShares Ether Strategy ETF | 46.72% | 3.73% | 105.87 |
| ARKY | ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Ethereum Strategy ETF | 46.56% | -1.59% | 4.97 |
| BITO | ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF | 46.37% | -0.78% | 1,937.73 |
| BETE | ProShares Bitcoin & Ether Equal Weight Strategy ETF | 46.12% | 1.40% | 4.42 |
| BETH | ProShares Bitcoin & Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF | 45.92% | 0.35% | 7.47 |
| MAXI | Simplify Bitcoin Strategy PLUS Income ETF | 45.89% | -4.03% | 22.06 |
Disclaimer: All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern time the date the article is published. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.
