I wonder if we will ever see a 33% drop to wipe out these 3x funds? TQQQ is up 40% YTD despite the volatility.
Actually, if you are in a low vol environment with a some auto correlation, long term holds can work very well. These products do terrible on an underlying that is volatile and doesn't trend. UNG and it's 3x leveraged ETN's were a great example of that. On the flip side, in 2017 (low vol, trending environment for equities) SPY was up 20% while UPRO was up 73%. That is 3.6x what the underlying did.
HAHAHAHA I wish I had filled the boat in April with TQQQ! I would be sitting fat dumb and happy right now! It was a friggin escalator!