Quote from kurbin:
How fast do ETFs decay... specifically FAS? How can I check the decay factor?
Quote from Haroki:
+1
There's no reason to think that FAS will see 12 again in the near future.
While I agree that FAS "might" see 12, there's no guarantee of that, cuz it doesn't take into account the deacy factor. The longer this goes against him, the capability of it climbing back there gets less and less.
And even if it does, it doesn't take into account the time lost that one could be in a profitable trade. If it takes a week to get back there (which is generous, IMHO) you've lost the oppurtunity during that time to make other profitable trades.
Money can be recaptured.
Time never can.
Quote from TraderSU:
They both will eventually die. Check following URL with 6 months time frame.
http://www.google.com/finance?q=FAS+FAZ+XLF
Quote from scot.mcpherson:
They won't "die" they'll find their baseline, which will continuously change. The baselines for all three dropped to march 6th, then FAS and XLF baselines began to rise with the bull market. While FAZ continued to fall.
The long ETFS are at approximately the same worth they were when the market was in the same price range before march 6th, while the short ETFs are still losing value.
Yes FAZ is up right now, but when the market turns away from this bearish trend for the week, it will drop back down to the baseline it had established previously and then will drop some more with the next bull rally.