Reasons to Run From Leveraged Funds

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i can give you 16 billion reasons one for every human being on the planet today.

dean hindmarsh 7:23AM January 21, 2011

I keep seeing articles where these funds are compared to their benchmark for an even number of days. But isn't one major idea behind "buy and hold" that there are more up days than down? If so the correct comparison would be a trading period where the benchmark was up 6 or 7 days out of 10.

Reminds me of the economist that didn't believe he saw a dollar on the ground, because in an efficient market someone else would already have picked it up.

Dan of CO 5:26PM April 12, 2010

I also do not think this is right. Take UUPIX, from ProFunds (mentioned in the article).

For the last year, UUPIX is up 150%, which is exactly twice the index it is trying to double (ADRE). Most other emerging market funds (non-leveraged) are doing about 95% (so UUPIX is beating them), including GTDDX, and FEMKX. Some other funds are doing under 50% (so UUPIX is 3x them!), such as VDMIX.

So, if, like me, you thought the market would go up after the crash, this was a great medium-term (1-1.5 year) investment, and looks to continue being so until this bull has run out of steam, no?

jeff Clune of MI 12:49AM January 18, 2010

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U.S. News Money takes a contemporary look at happenings in the financial world and aims to help young investors get going with their portfolios--or just sound cool at cocktail parties.

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