This specification describes the data as published on , covering 740 funds. Rebuilt every trading night.
Leveraged ETF methodology
This is the working specification: what is in it, where every figure comes from, the arithmetic that produces it, what is checked every night, and what it cannot tell you. It is written to be checkable by someone who does not trust it.
Scope
740 leveraged and inverse ETFs, of which 681 have an underlying that can be measured against. A fund is included if its registered name states a multiple, if a ticker trades under it, and if the price feed carries that ticker as that fund. Registrations with no ticker are shelf filings and are not published: there were 1,766 of them.
Sources
| Source | What it provides | Read | Spec |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC investment company series and class file | Every registered fund, its series id and the multiple stated in its own name | Yearly | document |
| SEC company_tickers_mf.json | The ticker each share class carries today, which the series file leaves empty on a third of its rows | Continuous | document |
| Tiingo end-of-day | Split and distribution adjusted closes for the fund and for its underlying | Daily | document |
| Prospectus XBRL, Form 485BPOS | The expense ratio each fund files, net of any waiver | Weekly | document |
What is computed
- Stated multiple
- Read from the fund’s own registered name. A name saying "2X Short" is -2; ProShares’ Ultra, UltraShort and UltraPro are read as 2, -2 and 3 only on ProShares funds, because Ultra Short is a duration on a bond fund and a multiple on an equity one.
- The underlying
- Mapped by hand from the fund name to a listed ticker, and checked nightly against the name the exchange gives that ticker. Most single-stock funds name the ticker outright. An index or an asset is mapped to the fund that tracks it, which is a proxy and is stated as one. Where no investable tracker exists, as for a thematic index, the fund is listed and not measured, because there is nothing honest to divide by.
- Fund return
- Total return with distributions reinvested, from adjusted closes, over the window’s exact days.
- What the stated multiple implies
- The stated multiple times the underlying’s return over the same days. This is not a claim the fund makes: it is the reading a buyer takes from the name, which is the point of printing it.
- Difference from the stated multiple
- Fund return minus what the stated multiple implies, in percentage points. Negative is the common case. It is not a fee and not tracking error in the usual sense; it is what compounding a levered daily return through a path produces.
- Expense ratio
- The total annual operating expense the fund files in its own prospectus, after fee waivers where it reports one. It is a component of the difference from the stated multiple, not a separate deduction ETFIQ applies: the difference already contains it, along with financing and compounding.
- Underlying volatility
- The annualized standard deviation of the underlying’s daily returns across the window. It is what decides how far the two figures separate.
- The side by side
- 131 underlyings carry the same stated multiple from more than one issuer. Those funds are compared only over the days every member of the group has been trading, because a since-launch window starts at each fund’s own launch and comparing those is comparing different years.
What is not computed
ETFIQ does not model the swaps, estimate financing cost separately, or forecast what a fund will do next. The difference from the stated multiple absorbs financing, fees and compounding together, because those are not separable from published prices and pretending otherwise would be a model rather than a measurement.
Where to next
Cite this page. ETFIQ, Leveraged ETF methodology, data as of Sep 12, 2026. https://etfiq.com/methodology/leverage Free to use with attribution; the underlying files are at Open data.