Four ETF CFDs That Carry Their Leverage Inside the Fund

Four ETF CFDs that carry their leverage inside the fund

SimpleFX has added four leveraged and inverse funds to its ETF CFD range: SOXL, TQQQ, SBIT and ETHD. The difference from other instruments is where the leverage comes from. Elsewhere on the platform, leverage is an account setting. In these four it is built into the fund, and it works on a daily cycle: the multiplier applies to one session, then resets. That is what makes results over several days differ from the multiplier alone.

What an ETF CFD is

An exchange-traded fund holds a group of assets, or sometimes just one, and trades as a single share. SPY holds the companies of the S&P 500. GLD holds physical gold. One ticker, one price, instead of buying each part separately.

A CFD on an ETF follows that fund's price without owning it. What the position earns or loses depends on the price move, the position size, the spread and any overnight financing. There are no fund units and no voting rights, and dividend adjustments may apply. Each symbol card on the platform has the full specification.

The four funds and their multipliers

Each of these funds is designed to multiply the daily return of the benchmark it tracks:

• SOXL: 3x the daily move of US-listed chip stocks, tracked through the NYSE Semiconductor Index
• TQQQ: 3x the daily move of the Nasdaq-100
• SBIT: 2x the inverse of Bitcoin's daily move
• ETHD: 2x the inverse of Ether's daily move

These are the funds' stated objectives rather than guaranteed results. If the Nasdaq-100 gains 1% over a daily measurement period, TQQQ aims for roughly 3%. If Bitcoin gains 1% over the same period, SBIT aims to lose roughly 2%, and the reverse when Bitcoin falls.

Two layers of leverage

Account leverage and fund leverage operate independently. The multiplier inside the fund determines the percentage move of the instrument; account leverage determines the size of the result relative to the deposit. Trading one of these four on a leveraged account therefore stacks exposure on top of exposure already built into the product.

Why the daily reset matters over longer holds

Each fund rebalances its exposure daily against its own net asset value, so that the multiplier applies to a defined measurement period rather than to the hours since a position was opened. Across several sessions, the outcome can diverge significantly from the multiplier applied to the benchmark's total return.

The size of that divergence depends on the direction and magnitude of the daily moves. In a volatile, directionless market, compounding erodes the value of the fund. In a sustained trend running the fund's way, compounding works for it, and an inverse fund can gain over time while its benchmark keeps falling. Overnight financing accrues on positions carried across sessions, so both effects grow with the holding period.

How they compare with standard ETF CFDs

Leveraged and inverse funds have a daily objective and do not deliver a fixed multiple of the benchmark over longer horizons. Standard funds such as SPY or GLD track their benchmark without a daily multiplier, though their returns can still differ through fees, tracking differences, distributions and the gap between the fund's market price and its asset value.

All four trade during the US market session, with exact hours, holidays and shortened sessions shown on each symbol card. The point deserves particular attention on SBIT and ETHD: Bitcoin and Ether trade continuously, so moves that occur while the fund is closed appear as a gap when the session reopens.

Availability and current spreads

SOXL, TQQQ, SBIT and ETHD are a permanent part of the ETF CFD range. Until 28 September at 20:00 UTC, spreads across that range are reduced by up to 70% under ETF Spread Cut, with SOXL, TQQQ and SBIT at the maximum reduction and ETHD at 52%.

The same promotion covers the remainder of the range: US indices through SPY and QQQ, crypto through IBIT and ETHA, metals through GLD and SLV, single countries through FXI (China), EWT (Taiwan), EWY (South Korea), EWM (Malaysia), EIDO (Indonesia) and ARGT (Argentina), and themes through LIT (lithium), URA (uranium) and REMX (rare earths). Several of them provide a whole basket of holdings in one position.