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Making Leveraged Exchange-Traded Funds Work for your Portfolio

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  • Peter Forsyth
  • Pieter van Staden
  • Yuying Li

Abstract

We examine strategically incorporating broad stock market leveraged exchange-traded funds (LETFs) into investment portfolios. We demonstrate that easily understandable and implementable strategies can enhance the risk-return profile of a portfolio containing LETFs. Our analysis shows that seemingly reasonable investment strategies may result in undesirable Omega ratios, with these effects compounding across rebalancing periods. By contrast, relatively simple dynamic strategies that systematically de-risk the portfolio once gains are observed can exploit this compounding effect, taking advantage of favorable Omega ratio dynamics. Our findings suggest that LETFs represent a valuable tool for investors employing dynamic strategies, while confirming their well-documented unsuitability for passive or static approaches.

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  • Peter Forsyth & Pieter van Staden & Yuying Li, 2025. "Making Leveraged Exchange-Traded Funds Work for your Portfolio," Papers 2506.19200, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2506.19200
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    References listed on IDEAS

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