Over the three months to October 13, 2026, 512 of 643 leveraged and inverse ETFs finished short of their own stated multiple. The median fund finished 5.2 points below what its name promises. This is not a defect in any single fund. These products deliver their stated multiple over one day only, then reset. When daily results compound across many days, the outcome is not the multiple applied to the period's overall move. The gap between the two tends to widen with how much the underlying moved around during the period, not with where it ended up.
The first table shows this pattern across holding periods. At one month, the median fund sat 1.3 points short of its stated multiple, with median underlying volatility of 39%. By three years, the median shortfall had grown to 27.1 points, against median volatility of 20%. The distance from the stated multiple, a separate column from the signed difference, also grows with the holding period: 1.7% at one month, 34.9% at three years. Three months was the window with the highest median underlying volatility among those shown, at 47%, and the median difference there was minus 5.2 points.
The third table breaks the three-month numbers out by how volatile the underlying was. Funds tracking underlyings that moved 0% to 30% had a median difference from stated of minus 1.9%, with 117 of 179 funds short. Funds in the 80%-and-above band had a median difference of minus 16.6%, with 109 of 125 funds short. The median volatility in that top band was 93%, against 16% in the lowest band. The pattern across all four bands runs in the same direction: more underlying volatility, a wider gap from the stated multiple.
The second table looks at cases where more than one issuer offers the same stated multiple on the same underlying over the same days. Across 127 such underlyings, the spread between the closest and furthest fund from the stated multiple varied by trade. On GME +2x, two issuers produced a spread of 8.2 points, with GMEC at minus 6.2 and GMEU at minus 14.4, while the underlying itself moved plus 21.4%. On BMNR +2x, three issuers spread 6.3 points, from BNMC at minus 13.8 to BMNG at minus 20.1, against an underlying move of plus 44.2%. At the other end of this table, PLTR +2x, with five issuers, produced a spread of 4.2 points, with PLTU at plus 2.1 and PLTG at minus 2.1, against an underlying move of plus 56.0%. Same mandate, same underlying, same days, and still a measurable spread in outcome between issuers.
None of this describes a fund failing to do what it says for a single day. The stated multiple is a one-day target, reset daily, and the tables above measure what happened when that daily reset compounded over weeks, months, or years. Readers can look up any individual fund's own underlying, holding period, and measured difference from its stated multiple on ETFIQ's fund pages.