Over the three months to October 2, 2026, 452 of 594 leveraged and inverse ETFs finished short of their own stated multiple. The median fund finished 5.3 percentage points below where that multiple implied it should land, with a median distance travelled by the underlying of 6.4% and median underlying volatility of 47%.
These funds reset daily. Each day they deliver the stated multiple of that day's move, then start fresh the next morning. Because daily results compound rather than add, a leveraged fund's return over a stretch of weeks or months is not the multiple times the underlying's total move over that stretch. The gap between the two depends on how much the underlying bounced around along the way, not on where it ended up. A fund can land close to its implied return after a calm, steady path and land far from it after a volatile one, even if the underlying finishes in the same place.
The data across holding periods bears this out. Over one month, the median fund was 1.1 points short, with median underlying volatility of 41%. Over six months the gap widened to 8.7 points, with volatility at 42%. Over one year it was 8.6 points short, though volatility had fallen to 34%. At three years, with volatility down to 19%, the median difference from stated closed to essentially zero. The pattern repeats when funds are grouped directly by how volatile their underlying was over the three months to October 2: funds tracking underlyings with 0% to 30% volatility had a median difference of -1.7%, while those above 80% volatility had a median difference of -18.9%, with 98 of 114 such funds finishing short.
The same underlying can also produce different outcomes depending on which fund offers the stated multiple. Among 81 underlyings tracked by the same stated multiple from more than one issuer, the spread between the closest and furthest fund varied by name. On MSTR at +2x, where the underlying moved +58.8% over the period, four issuers produced a 6.1 point spread between the closest fund (MSTC, -9.9) and the furthest (MSTX, -15.9). On GME at +2x, with the underlying up 8.2%, two issuers produced a 5.5 point spread between GMEC (-8.7) and GMEU (-14.2). Smaller spreads appeared elsewhere, such as STX at +2x, where three issuers produced a 2.8 point gap between STXX (-15.9) and STXL (-18.7).
None of this reflects a fund failing to do what it is built to do. Each of these products is constructed to deliver its stated multiple over a single trading day, and the method here measures each fund's return against its own underlying, over the same days, to see what that daily mechanism produces once it compounds across a longer window.
Readers can check any individual fund's three-month difference from its stated multiple, and the matching underlying volatility number, on the live desk.