Leveraged ETFs employ such a horrible rebalancing strategy. You're far better of manually running a strategy in leveraged futures or QQQ that can take some heat before downsizing. Likewise unconditionally levering up on favorable price moves is only a great strategy in hindsight.
Here's UOPIX (leveraged Nas fund... red) vs QQQ back to late 1997. I'm sure y'all can justify anything that suits you about this. The big decline on the left in UOPIX was from 147.99 to 6.47, according to FastTrack. It's leveraged "only" 2:1. TQQQ, which wasn't around back in the late '90s, is leveraged 3:1. Had it been around then, it would have suffered even a bigger percentage loss. Worst case scenario here if you're a B&H-er... you might have been holding for ~10 years while sitting on ~96% loss. Not sure how anyone can justify that nor can his investing psyche handle it. (I have a trader friend who is doing something similar... he shorted in 2011 in a leveraged ETF and is still holding.)
%% Good points; but'' close'' doesn't really count except horse shoes + hand grenades. And its not a'' bet'' even though i see your point on some diversification. OK Almost impossible for SPY to drop 33.3% in one day; but I've read the multihunderd page annual report/prospectus. Some funds allow this \ say SPY+ it dropped 33.3% OCT 19, 1987; some allow for settling OCT 20, 1987. IF that makes no sense dont worry + read the prospectus
buying Micro and mini NASDAQ futures is far more efficient, you get 10x and 0% management fee contracts as cheap as 2,500 USD for a 5x multiplier but regulatory oversight by the CFTC is far worse than anything, they ask you all kind of questions to make sure you are not a drug lord or gaming the market with some "offshore" hidden interests so looks like I will have to do with 3x ETFs now
amen to that brother, but keep in mind that opening a Futures account these days is far more difficult than a regular trading account, CFTC rules etc... so access to Futures through a 3x ETF is also a nice and safer alternative for those who don't have the gut with Futures and the 10x returns it gives on traded indexes
it seems that QQQ had a couple of splits so for price comparison, you have to be careful to adjust historical prices
%% Amen to that; mostly Prefer TQQQ,spxl, qld/dividends; qqq very seldom\ except trying to prove a bottom not pick a bottom. I dont like stuff could possibly geta margin call under any case or get sued for the balance in RE loan.