It may be worth taking a quick trip into why the math of leveraged ETFs doesn't work. The fundamental problem is that they lose more on losses by the underlyin

It may be worth taking a quick trip into why the math of leveraged ETFs doesn't work. The fundamental problem is that they lose more on losses by the underlying investment than they gain on gains by the underlying investment. Suppose that the underlying investment starts priced at 100, jumps 25% on Monday to 125, then on Tuesday drops 20% back to 100.00. It ended as it began with no gain or loss. What did our 2x ETF do? It began at 100, ended Monday at 100 + 50% = 150.00, then ended Tuesday at 150.00 - 40% = 90. It lost a big chunk of value relative to its completely unchanged underlying investment.