Should You Use Leveraged ETFs Over The Long Haul?

If there’s one ETF product on the market that continues to generate huge amounts of controversy, it has to be leveraged ETFs. These funds seek to amplify your bets — sometimes as much as 3x — in everything from broad stock indexes and sectors to commodities and bonds. By using various swaps, futures and other derivatives, the ETFs hope to provide that extra “juice” for a single day. According to our database, there are now 209 Leveraged ETFs in the market with new launches happening all the time. There have been plenty of warnings from advisors, market pundits and product sponsors that these funds are designed for short term trading purposes only. But are there instances where a leverage fund could work for longer periods? And if so, is it worth adding a dash of these ETFs to your portfolio?