The Executive Brief
The Player: Leverage Shares, a European heavyweight, is aggressively expanding in the US, targeting the market share of Direxion and GraniteShares.
The Good: They are launching a massive lineup of 2x Daily ETFs with physical replication (no swaps) and significantly lower fees (0.75%).
The Bad: Their "Capped Accelerated" monthly reset funds (TSLO, PLOO) rely on marketing buzzwords but fail the math test.
The Verdict: Trade their 2x Daily funds to save on fees; ignore the Capped funds.
The European Invasion
If you trade volatility, you know the usual suspects: Direxion, GraniteShares, and ProShares. But there is a new challenger in the arena, and they are competing on the one thing Wall Street hates competing on: Price.
Leverage Shares is making a massive play for the US leveraged ETF market. Their strategy is simple: flood the zone with 2x leveraged products on single stocks and undercut the competition.
While competitors often charge expense ratios north of 0.95% or 1.15%, Leverage Shares is sitting at 0.75%.
How are they doing it? Most leveraged ETFs use "Swaps"—essentially derivatives contracts with big banks to achieve leverage. This adds counterparty risk and cost. Leverage Shares operates differently. They are their own Trust. They handle their own trading and compliance in-house (via Tidal Financial), and crucially, they hold the underlying assets physically.
They aren't just betting on the price movement via a contract; they are buying the stock on margin. This structure allows them to trim the management fee fat, and for high-frequency traders, those basis points add up.
The Expansion is Aggressive They aren't just doing the Magnificent Seven. Leverage shares currently has 49 2x leveraged tickers to trade. Just last week, they dropped a basket of new 2x tickers for the degens among us:
OPEG (2x OpenDoor)
CIFG (2x Cipher Mining)
GRAG (2x Grab Holdings)
DUOG (2x Duolingo)
LACG (2x Lithium Americas)
UPSG (2x UPS)
If you are a day trader looking for 2x leverage on these names, these tickers are an absolute win. Leverage Shares is the leveraged product line managed by Themes Management, which also offers a diverse portfolio of low-cost thematic, fundamental, and commodity-focused ETFs. They have a total of 17 non-leveraged ETF’s you can explore.
The Trap: "Capped Accelerated" ETFs
However, while their standard ETF’s are fine and their 2x Daily funds are a welcome disruption, their other flagship product line requires a serious warning label.
Leverage Shares is heavily marketing their "Capped Accelerated Monthly ETFs" (Tickers like TSLO, PLOO, NVDO).
The Pitch: They claim these funds seek to provide ~2x the positive return of the stock (up to a cap) while only taking 1x the downside risk. They also advertise that because these reset monthly rather than daily, you can hold them "indefinitely" without the volatility decay that eats up standard leveraged ETFs.
Sounds like the Holy Grail, right? All the upside, limited downside, no decay.
The Reality: I didn't just read the brochure; I overlaid the charts. I compared their Capped funds against the underlying assets over the last 3 months. The math does not work.
These funds create a scenario where your upside is legally limited, but your downside is barely cushioned.
Exhibit A: The Bull Case (Where is the Leverage?) In a ripping bull market, you want your 2x fund to actually provide 2x returns.
Tesla (TSLA): Up 17.20% over the last 3 months.
TSLO (The "2x" Fund): Up only 8.45%.
Result: You paid fees to underperform the stock you were bullish on.
TSLA(White) vs TSLO(Green) vs TSLG(blue)
Exhibit B: The Sideways Case
Palantir (PLTR): Gained 9.91%.
PLOO (The Fund): Gained 10.97%.
Result: You beat the underlying by 1%. That is not "Accelerated" returns; that is noise.
PLTR(White) vs PLOO(Green) vs PLTG(blue)
Exhibit C: The Bear Case (No Safety Net) The marketing implies these funds are safer because they avoid the 2x downside. But look at the data when things go wrong.
MicroStrategy (MSTR): Crashed 46.81% (during the specific period analyzed).
MSOO (The Fund): Crashed 44.95%.
Result: You saved 2%. If the stock crashes, you still crash.
MSTR(White) vs MSOO(Green) vs MSTX(blue)
Exhibit D: The "Protection" Illusion
Coinbase (COIN): Down 17.48%.
COIO (The Fund): Down 10.82%.
Result: This was the only scenario where the fund outperformed significantly on the downside, but you still lost money.
COIN(White) vs COIO(Green) vs CONL(blue)
The Bottom Line
Leverage Shares is a company with a split personality.
On one hand, they are a hero for active traders. Their 2x Daily funds (like TSLG) are structurally sound, cheaper than the competition, and offer great variety. If you are day-trading TSLA or NVDA, the lower expense ratio makes them a superior product to Direxion or GraniteShares.
On the other hand, the Capped Accelerated funds are a solution looking for a problem. They cap your winners so you can't enjoy the run, and they fail to protect your losers.
My advice: Enjoy the fee war. Trade the cheaper 2x Daily products. But don't let the marketing buzzwords trick you into holding the Capped products long-term.
Disclaimer: This content was written by a human & formatted by ai. This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. I am not a financial advisor.