ProShares' Leveraged, Inverse and Inverse-Leveraged ETFs Top $2 Billion in Assets

ProShares' line-up of leveraged, inverse and inverse-leveraged exchange-traded funds are among the fastest growing products in the ETF industry. The funds, which launched in June and July, gathered their first $1 billion by the start of October – just three months after launch. Incredibly enough, that asset growth actually accelerated in the fall, as the group pulled down its second billion dollars between October 3 and December 5.

"We're delighted with the continued strong response to ProShares," said Michael Sapir, CEO of ProShare Advisors, part of ProFunds Group. "We’re very pleased with the levels of liquidity we’ve seen. Currently, ProShares regularly trade more than three million shares daily and have traded as many as six million shares in one day."

Interestingly, no single fund has gobbled the bulk of the assets. The leveraged and short leveraged funds tied to the Nasdaq-100 Index are the most popular funds, with $286.6 and $597.6 million in assets, respectively. That supports expectations that the products will be used primarily by traders looking to make fast moves in the marketplace; the Nasdaq-100 has the highest volatility among the four indexes being tracked by ProShares funds.

Net-net, the leveraged short (UltraShort) funds have attracted the bulk assets, pulling in $1,157 million, compared to $578.2 million for the leveraged long (Ultra) funds and just $361.3 million for the straight short (Short) funds. That makes sense, given the costs of achieving each type of exposure through other means; the leveraged short funds are the best “deal” of the bunch.