Hamilton US T-Bill Yield Maximizer ETF (HBIL.TO)

Writes options on bonds, but still risk from inflation. No free lunch. Watch carefully. OK in a slightly falling market. In a true market correction, NAV would be eroded.

This uses the SGOV and TLT, two popular ETFs, and write a covered call strategy on top. When volatility is high, you want to look at covered calls and option strategies. He's looking at this space, but won't add it now. The covered call isn't panning out for investors now.

Can't write covered calls on really short-term assets that don't have volatility. If there's no volatility, there's no options market. Not sure if they're doing that in this ETF, he'll have to unpack this a bit more. What he can see so far is that it's losing $$.

A money-market strategy, which is about as safe as you can get. Not a Guaranteed Investment Certificate, but very close.

That said, during the great financial crisis over a decade ago, many money-market funds were invested in asset-backed commercial paper. There was a credit event, and that market froze up. So these funds sometimes dabble in the credit market a bit. You have to be careful and understand what you own.

This one looks like short-term government money-market bills. But he'd have to do a deeper dive to see exactly. "Maximizer" tells him that there are added features for extra yield. These products tend to be safe generally.