Quote from lemarche:
investing for a 5 year timespan using a 3x leveraged ETF is SUICIDAL because of the money you will loose because of the Theta effect.....
I'm sorry, I don't agree on that.
I wrote about this matter on 15 September 2012.
To use or not to use Leveraged ETFs?
There are some people suggest that we should not use leveraged ETFs, arguing that âvolatility destroys Leveraged ETFsâ or âLeveraged ETFs lose from compoundingâ, but I think that we must not do as some suggest because Leveraged ETFs are not as dangerous as they say.
Let's take an example, suppose we bought SSO (2x Leveraged S&P 500 ETF) and UPRO (3x Leveraged S&P500 ETF) at 7/1/10 and held it through today 9/15/12. The underlying S&P 500 Index gained 42,67% over this period, SPY (S&P 500 ETF) gained 49, 56% (more than 42,67%), SSO gained 99,91% (more than 2x42,67%= 85,34%) and UPRO gained 152,85% (more than 3x 42,67% = 128,01%).
So, we conclude that, SSO and UPRO reached more than their purposes.
It's not always that way. In periods of extreme volatility, Leveraged ETFs loses value, but also gains more value in other periods.
The leveraged ETFs aren't perfect but I think with reasonable market timing, leveraged ETFs are a good way to increase our returns.