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Brent Sullivan's avatar

These things are horribly tax inefficient too. Except in bear markets when they return capital, eroding principal.

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BG's avatar

It seems like you should be able to benefit from daily decay by longing puts.

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Pip McIntyre's avatar

Well written article about an under-reported area - leveraged ETFs.

This is the first item I have seen about the tracking error problem with these instruments.

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Brad Garland's avatar

Great article, thanks for writing it up and giving more things to consider. I'm a retail investor who's been doing a levered long index ETF strategy for the last couple years but continue to challenge if I'm right when most experts say it's supposed to be used for daily use only.

My strategy is to use MAs to protect downside risk to scale out and manage volatility decay. I have considered using margin but the rates I could get as a retail investor vs these ETFs is no where close as well as I don't risk getting margin called using them.

Curious where you think I'm off base here? Always willing to listen and learn, thanks again for the post.

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Jeffrey Ptak's avatar

Thanks, Brad. I don’t have an opinion on your strategy. My article focuses on how investors appear to have fared in these products (not well) but if you have found an approach that works for you I have no quarrel with that. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. Kind regards, Jeff

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