Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJeff BenjaminSun, June 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM GMT+2 6 min readConcerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors.For some investors, financial planning now means holding a leveraged ETF until Thursday.ETFs that offer two- and three-times the daily market exposure to underlying investments, or are structured to bet against those investments, have been gaining popularity across the broader investing universe. According to VettaFi, there are now approximately 770 leveraged and inverse ETFs on the market in the United States. When it comes to ramping up portfolio performance through exchange-traded funds that leverage exposure to an underlying index or single stock, however, most financial advisors are waving the caution flag.“Issuers are launching products tied to whichever single stock or sector happens to be capturing the zeitgeist, whether that’s artificial intelligence hardware, crypto-adjacent equities or even major IPOs,” said Kirsten Chang, VettaFi senior industry analyst. “The massive shift here isn’t just that the category is growing, it’s how it’s expanding.”Sign up for The Daily Upside at no cost for premium analysis on all your favorite stocks.READ ALSO: Wellington’s $1.9B Deal to Buy Hartford Funds and Robinhood’s New AI Trader Is Raising Red Flags for AdvisorsHistorically, leveraged ETFs were tied to broad market indexes like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100, but the industry is expanding rapidly and the real explosive growth is in “hyper-targeted” ETFs. Citing the growing appeal among active traders, Chang explained that “the market has essentially evolved from a macro hedging tool into a highly granular casino for high-conviction daily stock traders.”While market sizing in this category is a constantly moving target, a half-dozen popular leveraged ETFs ramp up exposure to some technology and broad market indexes and combine for more than $90 billion in assets, according to the data. In terms of trading volume, two ETFs that leverage up the tech sector — the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) and the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) — “are among the most heavily traded securities on the planet on a daily basis, occasionally pulling in higher daily trading volumes than the actual tech giants they track,” Chang said.It’s against that backdrop that financial advisors are navigating the flood of new leveraged and inverse ETFs while trying to keep the focus on longer-term investing, as opposed to the more aggressive practice of day trading. “I don’t like them at all because I don’t think they work that well over the long term,” said Chuck Failla, founder and chief executive of Sovereign Financial Group. “You’re basically making a short-term bet that something is going to happen, and I wouldn’t make a short-term bet on anything,” he added. “It’s too much like gambling for me.”Terms and Privacy PolicyPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info