Quote from Arjun1:
If you trade a 3x leveraged fund with 4x intraday margin on a retail account then that's adds up to 12x margin - which approximates margin on index futures.
A better idea would have been to create an 3x ETF based on the S&P 500 - that would've attracted huge volume.
The 3x leverage only holds true on a daily basis, so these ETFs are great for daytraders and very short term traders.
Over the long run, they're really not worth it as there is no way they can deliver a performance that is 3x the benchmark.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/35789-the-case-against-leveraged-etfs
I have 4 to 1 buying power and would never even consider taking on that much risk, I dont even like taking on 2 to 1 margin but I do it.
