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16 Highly Traded Leveraged/Inverse ETFs Of 2016

Thanks to heightened volatility in the stock markets, leveraged or inverse ETFs have been gaining immense popularity as investors are making a dash for big gains on quick market turns. This is especially true as the stocks logged their best gains last week on a year-to-date basis after seeing the worst-ever start to a year. However, the markets fell again in yesterday’s trading session, keeping the volatility levels high. Leveraged or inverse products either create a leveraged long/short position, an inverse long/short position or a leveraged inverse long/short position in the underlying index through the use of swaps, options, future contracts and other financial instruments. Due to their compounding effect, investors can enjoy higher returns in a very short period of time, provided the trend remains a friend. However, these funds run the risk of huge losses compared to traditional funds in fluctuating or erratic markets. Further, their performance could vary significantly from the actual performance of their underlying index over a longer period when compared to a shorter period (such as weeks or months). In spite of this drawback, investors flocked to these products for outsized gains in a short span. We have highlighted 16 leveraged/inverse ETFs that have seen massive trading so far this year. Most of these ETFs have delivered negative returns from a year-to-date look, yet have been investors’ darlings with abnormal returns piled up in a short period when the trend favored a specific corner of the world. ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (NYSEARCA: UVXY ) Leveraged Factor: 2x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index YTD Volume: $48.38 billion This product provides two times (2x) exposure to the daily performance of the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, which reflects an implied volatility of the S&P 500 Index at various points along the volatility forward curve. It offers a daily rolling long position in the first- and second-month VIX futures contracts. The ETF has amassed about $378.4 million in its asset base while charging 95 bps in fees per year from investors. It is the most heavily traded ETF so far this year, with the highest trading volume of $48.38 billion. The fund has gained 3 1.3% in the year-to-date time frame. VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (NASDAQ: XIV ) Leveraged Factor: 1x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index YTD Volume: $25.76 billion With an AUM of more than $ 1 billion, this ETN is popular and offers inverse (opposite) exposure to the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, charging a higher expense ratio of 1.35%. The note has seen total trading volume of $25.76 billion so far this year and has lost 23.7%. Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3x Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: TNA ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: Russell 2000 Index YTD Volume: $14.54 billion This product provides triple (3x) leveraged play to the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, charging 95 bps in fees and expenses. It has been able to manage $787.7 million in its asset base with year-to-date trading volume of $ 14.54 billion. TNA is down 28.9% so far this year. ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SDS ) Leveraged Factor: 2x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P 500 index YTD Volume: $14.33 billion This fund seeks two times leveraged inverse exposure to the S&P 500 index, charging 89 bps in fees. It is relatively popular, having amassed $ 1.5 billion in AUM and having exchanged a total of $ 14.33 billion in volume so far. SDS is up 7.6% in the year-to-date time frame. VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term ETN (NASDAQ: TVIX ) Leveraged Factor: 2x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index YTD Volume: $13.86 billion Like UVXY, this note also offers two times exposure to the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, but comes with an additional expense ratio of 0.70%. With an AUM of $342.8 million, the fund has traded in massive volumes of $ 13.86 billion and has surged 30.7% this year. VelocityShares 3x Inverse Crude Oil ETN (NYSEARCA: DWTI ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return YTD Volume: $13.59 billion This product provides three times inverse exposure to the daily performance of the S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return. With an AUM of $490.2 million, it has traded in massive volumes of $ 13.59 billion and has gained 18.4% this year. The ETN is a bit pricey as it charges 1.35% in annual fees. ProShares Ultra S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SSO ) Leveraged Factor: 2x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P 500 Index YTD Volume: $13.30 billion This is the most popular and liquid ETF in the leveraged space with an AUM of $ 1.6 billion. The fund seeks to deliver twice the return of the S&P 500 Index, charging investors 0.89% in expense ratio. It has seen solid trading volumes of $ 13.30 billion so far this year and is down 9.6%. ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (NYSEARCA: SVXY ) Leveraged Factor: 1x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index YTD Volume: $12.64 billion Like TVIX, this fund offers inverse exposure to the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, but with no leveraged factor. It charges 95 bps in annual fees per year from investors and has exchanged about $ 12.64 billion in shares this year. The fund has accumulated $487 million in its asset base and shed 23.7% so far this year. Direxion Daily Gold Miners Index Bull 3x Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: NUGT ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: NYSE Arca GoldMiners Index YTD Volume: $11.04 billion This product seeks to deliver thrice the daily performance of the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index, which consists of firms that operate globally in both developed and emerging markets, and are involved primarily in the exploration and production of gold. It is rich in AUM of $946 million and has seen solid trading volume of $ 1 1.04 billion so far in the year. Expense ratio comes in at 0.95%. The fund has delivered robust returns of 1 12. 1% year to date. ProShares UltraPro Short S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPXU ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P 500 Index YTD Volume: $10.88 billion This fund provides three times inverse exposure to the S&P 500 Index. It has an expense ratio of 0.93% and has seen a massive trading volume of $ 10.88 billion so far this year. It has amassed $548.6 million in its asset base and gained 10.4% year to date. ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF (NASDAQ: SQQQ ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: NASDAQ 100 Index YTD Volume: $9.91 billion Investors embracing this product made huge profits from the declining NASDAQ 100 Index in a very short period. The product has exchanged $9.9 1 billion in average daily volume this year. It offers three times inverse exposure to the NASDAQ 100 Index, charging 0.95% in annual fees. The fund has an AUM of $378.2 million and has added 19.9% in the year-to-date time frame. ProShares UltraPro S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: UPRO ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P 500 Index YTD Volume: $9.55 billion This product also tracks the S&P 500 index, but offers thrice the returns of the daily performance with a bit higher expense ratio (by 2 bps) than SPXU. It has an AUM of $856.9 million and year-to-date trading volume of $9.55 billion. UPRO is down over 14.9% so far this year. Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3x Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: TZA ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: Russell 2000 Index YTD Volume: $9.41 billion This product provides triple leveraged inverse play to the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, charging 95 bps in fees and expenses. It has been able to manage $444.2 million in its asset base with year-to-date trading volume of $9.4 1 billion. TZA is down 3 1.6% so far this year. VelocityShares 3x Long Crude Oil ETN (NYSEARCA: UWTI ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return YTD Volume: $8.69 billion This is the popular leveraged fund targeting the energy segment of the commodity market through WTI crude oil futures contracts. It seeks to deliver thrice the returns of the S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return and has amassed $9 10 million in its asset base. Though the fund charges a higher fee of 1.35% per year, its total trading volume of $8.69 billion year to date is incredible. UWTI is down about 6 1.8% in the same time frame. ProShares Short S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SH ) Leveraged Factor: 1x Inverse: Yes Benchmark Index: S&P 500 Index YTD Volume: $8.20 billion This is the most popular inverse ETF with an AUM of $2.6 billion, providing inverse exposure to the daily performance of the S&P 500 index. It has seen a massive trading volume of $8.20 billion so far this year and has returned about 5.4%. Expense ratio came in at 0.90%. Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bull 3x Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: SPXL ) Leveraged Factor: 3x Inverse: No Benchmark Index: S&P 500 Index YTD Volume: $8.12 billion SPXL makes an excellent pick for investors seeking to make large profits from the soaring stock market in a very short span. The fund creates a triple leveraged long position in the S&P 500 Index while charging 95 bps in fees a year. It has $635.2 million in AUM and has traded in a solid total volume of $8. 12 billion so far this year. The ETF has lost about 18% year to date. Original post

Google Fiber Heads To San Francisco; Faster Search Service Coming

Google Fiber, the super-fast Internet-access service spearheaded by Google’s parent firm Alphabet ( GOOGL ), is about to become available in San Francisco. Google Fiber’s Internet access will soon reach “some apartments, condos and affordable housing properties” in the tech-drenched Northern California city, using existing fiber networks rather than one built from scratch, wrote Michael Slinger, Google Fiber’s director of business operations, in a blog post on Wednesday. Using San Francisco’s existing fiber network will make the startup of the service come about more quickly, but it also means the service won’t be available everywhere in the city. Still, it’s a boost for tech-innovation hub San Francisco, where homes and businesses largely don’t have Web access that’s any better than in other parts of the country. Google Fiber started six years ago in Kansas City and the company has “committed to bring Fiber to a total of ten metropolitan areas,” said Slinger in the blog post. “To date, we’ve focused mostly on building fiber-optic networks from scratch. Now, as Google Fiber grows, we’re looking for more ways to serve cities of different shapes and sizes. That’s why we’re working with Huntsville, Alabama to tap into the city’s planned municipal fiber network.” Speed Needed For Mobile Web In other news, Google is also widening use of a technology that loads Web pages more quickly while consuming less data — in an aim to make it easier for people to navigate the Internet using their mobile phones. Google said Wednesday that it will display relevant pages in the Top Stories section of search-results pages that are built with its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology. AMP is similar to efforts underway by Alphabet-rivals Facebook ( FB ), and its Instant Articles, and Apple ( AAPL ), and its Apple News service, which also aim to speed up how quickly articles load on mobile devices. Pages built with Google’s new technology load about four times faster and use 10 times less data than typical pages, Google said. The AMP technology improves how ads are seen. Stopping ads from slowing-down readers’ access to online articles could help deflect one of the main threats that the industry says could be facing digital ad companies — the growing use of ad-blocking software. AMP works by having developers rewrite their pages in a slightly simpler and more limited language, and hosts the pages on Google’s infrastructure, according to a Bloomberg report . “No matter how many ads you put on the page the content comes first,” Bloomberg quoted David Besbris, a Google vice president of engineering for search, as saying. “If a user taps on something they will get the content immediately.” Alphabet stock closed up 0.5% in the stock market today , at 720.90. Facebook stock and Apple stock both rose more than 1%. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Facebook Looks Beyond ‘Like’ With ‘Angry’ Button, A Brand Strategy

Facebook ( FB ) has unveiled a new feature that lets its users show how they really feel about posts or ads on the site. Instead of a plain vanilla “Like” in reaction to a post or ad, users of Facebook’s new Reactions feature can add faces that emote “Like,” “Love,” “Haha,” “Wow,” “Sad” or “Angry.” The move adding more expressive emojis comes as Facebook is competing against Apple ( AAPL ), Google parent Alphabet ( GOOGL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), microblog Twitter ( TWTR ) and others to attract more advertisers. Advertisers and brands have said that extending a wider range of reactions will give advertisers a better understanding of what Facebook users think. Armed with that knowledge, brands can improve targeting and deliver better ads. “They’ll provide greater feedback,” J.R. Rigley, president and CMO at packaged-goods company J.R. Watkins, said about the expanded sentiment options last fall, according to AdWeek . “We will know more about how viewers feel about the brand, which could be helpful to us. The con is that they might not like the content. But some of that could be good, too.” The Reactions sentiment-options feature had been in testing since October in Ireland and Spain, and was made available to all Facebook’s 1.59 billion users globally on Wednesday. “We’ve been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel. That’s why today we are launching Reactions, an extension of the Like button, to give you more ways to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way,” wrote Facebook product manager Sami Krug in a blog post on Wednesday. To add a reaction, users must hold down the “Like” button on their mobile device — or hover above the “Like” button on a desktop computer to see the reaction image options — then tap buttons to add one of the expanded range of emojis. Early this month, Facebook announced that it had doubled the length of video ads on Instagram to 60 seconds, and Wednesday revealed that it has over 200,000 advertisers on the photo- and video-sharing service. Facebook derives more than 96% of total revenue from advertising, with video ads deriving a premium price. Facebook has about 2.5 million advertisers overall, of which 75% are outside the U.S. Facebook stock lifted from a morning dip to close up 1.4% in the stock market today , at 106.88. Apple stock closed up 1.5%. Alphabet and Microsoft rose fractionally and Twitter stock dropped 1.6%. A top-rated big-cap tech stock, Facebook carries the highest IBD Composite Rating of 99, putting it among the top 1% of all companies across key metrics such as revenue and earnings growth and stock-price gains.