TZA Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X ETF
Aims to return three times the opposite of the daily move of the Russell 2000
Three months to Sep 11, 2026: TZA returned +4.2% where its own daily promise gave +0.7%, 3.5 points over.
Key facts
ETFIQ Decay Resistance Score
91.311th of 121
TZA finished 3.5 points ahead of what -3 times IWM’s daily move would have given, compounded through the same days.
Did it keep up with its own daily multiple, compounded day by day?
That is the share of the 121 inverse ETFs over three months sitting at or below TZA. A position in this set, not a rating: it moves when the set moves, and it is not a figure to average against another desk's.
All leveraged ETFs ranked by this score · How it is computed
3rd of 7 leveraged ETFs on IWM, by closeness to their own label 3rd of 7 leveraged and inverse ETFs by net assets
What it aimed at, and what it did
Over the window to Sep 11, 2026, IWM moved −1.1%. TZA returned +4.2%, where 3 times that move implies +3.5%. The difference is +0.7 pts.
Period by period
| Window | Fund | IWM | -3x the move | Difference | IWM moved about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month | +15.5% | −4.6% | +13.7% | +1.8 pts | 12% |
| 3 months | +4.2% | −1.1% | +3.5% | +0.7 pts | 14% |
| 6 months | −40.7% | +17.6% | −52.9% | +12.2 pts | 18% |
| 1 year | −47.7% | +21.2% | −63.7% | +16.0 pts | 19% |
| 3 years | −82.8% | +62.5% | −187.6% | +104.8 pts | 21% |
| Since launch | −100.0% | +464.0% | not meaningful over this window | not meaningful over this window | 22% |
The same trade from 2 issuers
Every fund that sets out to return -3 times IWM, over the days all of them have been trading. Ranked by how close each came to its own stated multiple.
In plain words
Read the multiple against the whole window instead and −3 times IWM's −1.1% implies +3.5%, which makes TZA look 0.7 points over. 2.7 of that is daily compounding, which happens to any −3 times fund over the same path, and the rest is the fund. TZA aims to return -3 times IWM's move each day, then resets. Over one day it does that. Over longer, the daily results compound, so the total is not -3 times the period's move: in a market that falls and comes back it is reliably less, and in a steady run it can be more. IWM moved at 14% annualized over that window. That is what decides how far the two figures separate: the same fund on a calm underlying and a violent one is a different product.
| Sets out to return | -3 times the daily move of IWM, reset daily |
|---|---|
| Multiple a holder actually got over the window (ETFIQ) | IWM moved −1.1% over this window, too little to read a multiple from |
| Underlying | IWM |
| Segment | broad index, us small cap |
| Net assets (source, as filed for Apr 30, 2026) | $266m |
| Expense ratio (485BPOS XBRL, Feb 26, 2026) | 0.99% |
| Launched | Jan 4, 2010 |
| Underlying volatility over the window (ETFIQ) | 14% annualized |
Returns are ETFIQ calculations from Tiingo end-of-day prices, distributions reinvested, measured against the underlying over exactly the same days. How these figures are computed
Questions people ask
- Did TZA return -3 times IWM?
- Over the window to Sep 11, 2026, IWM moved −1.1% and TZA returned +4.2%. 3 times that move is +3.5%, so the fund came out 0.7 points ahead of it.
- Why does TZA not return -3 times over a year?
- Because it resets daily. TZA aims at -3 times each day's move, and daily results compound. Over a run where the underlying falls and comes back, compounding a levered daily return leaves a holder behind what -3 times the period move would suggest; over a steady run in one direction it can leave them ahead. The longer the holding, and the more the underlying moves about, the further apart the two figures get.
- Which -3x IWM ETF tracked its stated multiple most closely?
- 2 issuers sell one. Over the days all of them have been trading, the table on this page ranks them by how far each finished from 3 times the underlying's move. ETFIQ does not rate funds; the order is the arithmetic.
The words on this page
- Stated multiple
- What the fund sets out to return against its underlying, each day. A fund at 2x aims to return twice the underlying’s daily move, and an inverse fund at -2x aims to return twice it in the opposite direction.
- Daily reset
- The fund starts each day aiming at the multiple again, from wherever it now stands. It is the mechanism that makes these funds behave as they do, and the reason the stated multiple applies to a day rather than to a holding period.
- Compounding
- Daily results multiply together rather than adding up. Two days of the multiple is not twice the multiple, and over a run of days the difference between the two grows with how far the underlying moves about.
- Decay
- What compounding costs a holder when the underlying falls and rises back to where it started. The underlying is level and the fund is down; the more violently it moved, the further down.
- Difference against the stated multiple
- The fund’s return minus the stated multiple times the underlying’s return, in percentage points. The one figure that says whether a holder got what the fund’s own multiple describes.
Every term used here, defined in full on the leveraged ETFs vocabulary page.
Where these figures came from
ETFIQ links to the documents behind every figure. It is not affiliated with any issuer, and a link is not an endorsement.
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Where to next
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Where TZA is written about
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Cite this page. ETFIQ, TZA, leveraged ETFs, data as of Sep 11, 2026. https://etfiq.com/funds/TZA Free to use with attribution; the underlying files are at Open data.