Over the three months to September 22, 2026, 412 of 540 leveraged and inverse ETFs finished short of their own stated multiple. The median fund landed 4.5 points from where that multiple, applied simply to the underlying's move, would have put it. Across the five holding windows measured, the pattern holds in every one: at one month, 481 of 680 funds fell short by a median of 1.6 points; at six months, 303 of 406 fell short by 10.4 points; at one year, 208 of 313 fell short by 8.6 points; at three years, 63 of 126 fell short by 0.7 points.
The reason sits in how these funds work. They deliver their stated multiple over a single trading day, then reset. String days together and the daily results compound rather than add, so the outcome over a quarter or a year is not simply the multiple times the underlying's move over that period. What drives the gap is not where the underlying ends up but how far it travels along the way. This shows in the median distance column: at three months the median underlying moved 6.1% one way, with volatility of 47%, well above the one-month window's 2.0% move and 45% volatility. The erosion table sharpens this. Underlyings with volatility of 0% to 30% (167 funds) showed a median difference from stated of -1.9%, while those with volatility of 80% and above (124 funds) showed -18.8%, with 108 of 124 funds falling short. The relationship is consistent: more volatility, more erosion, regardless of the fund's issuer or ticker.
The data also lets a reader compare funds that chase the same underlying at the same stated multiple but come from different issuers. 53 underlyings carry an identical multiple from more than one issuer, and the spread between the closest and furthest fund on the same trade can be wide. On ETHA +2x, where the underlying moved +65.8% and four issuers offered the trade, ETU finished closest to stated at +21.2 while ETHT finished furthest at +15.1, a spread of 6.1 points. On XRPR +2x, with three issuers and the underlying up 44.4%, XRPT finished at -10.8 against XXRP's -15.9, a 5.1-point spread. Smaller spreads appear too: XLK +2x, tracked by two issuers against a 6.7% underlying move, showed ROM at -3.2 and XLKX at -4.9, a 1.6-point spread. Same mandate, same days, same underlying move, different results.
None of this is a comment on any single fund's construction or fees. It reflects the mechanics of daily compounding applied to funds that reset each day, measured here against Tiingo end-of-day prices with distributions reinvested, using each fund's own underlying over the same dates. Funds whose underlying has no investable tracker are excluded, since there is nothing to measure them against.
Readers can pull up any of these tickers on the live desk to see the fund's own return, its underlying's move over the same window, and the resulting distance from the stated multiple, updated to the same date as this data.