@rostc…thank you for all the color you provide, while im mostly off doing my own thing, I feel fortunate to have found this site…keep up the great work.

Of all the leveraged ETFs, those trading the S&P 500 are among the best when it comes to decay (i.e.- minimal decay) as the S&P 500 is much less volatile than most sectors & especially the $VIX.

As such, one could hold a 2x or possibly 3x (with the former better than the latter, IMO) leveraged long or short tracking ETF for the broad market during a primary trend (i.e.- bull or bear market) while some of the worst leveraged ETFs for long-term holds that I’ve seen are DUST, NUGT, LABU, LABD, all the $VIX ETNs and DGAZ/UGAZ.

All of those need to be carefully timed to coincide with relatively quick (usually days or weeks, occasionally months) swing trades & ideally, mostly unidirectional (strong rallies or correction) trends.

also I will add, that with the exception of tvix which I have never traded, the only chance you have with these 3 times vehicles is you have to be prepared to average down to stay in the ballpark when the timing is wrong…and that can be painful.

TVIX ranks among the worst of all ETFs as far as decay goes if held for an extended period of time. I would suspect (but can’t be sure as the chart doesn’t go back to the last bear market) that even if you held TVIX through the next bear market, which is likely to last years, that the decay will offset a lot of the potential gains.

The best thing to do, IMO, would be to attempt to swing the major trends/wave within the next bear market vs. trying to tuck TVIX, or really any stock market proxy short trade, away other than maybe a core short position on the major indexes.

Go look at a chart of the TVIX over the long term. TVIX in June of 2013 was at $1 million if you account for all those reverse splits due to decay. It’s now below $13.
SQQQ is better but it still came down from around $2500. I wouldn’t hold either for more than a few months unless the market is going in the direction you need it to.

I have held spxu for months while the markets were heading in the wrong direction, when the turn came I experienced very little decay….im in sqqq now but a lot closer to breakeven…. only “safe” investment is a raft shop in Cuba!…good luck.