What are some of the best ways to make money during a recession? Make money off the market by shorting it? (use a etf to short the market as a whole?, wise to use a x2 or x3 short etf?).
Other better options?
As somebody who works in the Hedge Fund Industry i can say, that ETFs are great but leveraged ETFs are crap.
Why?
They are two kinds of Leverage, despite both are called Leverage. Sounds strange but that's a fact.
ETFs and Factor-Certificates/Warrants are static leveraged. They have a static Leverage lets say 10 (mostly less) which always stays the same. So lets do a little calculation here:
A Etf starts with 100 points and it rises by 1%, so the new point-value is 110.
A day later the Etf falls by 1% so 110 points become .... 99, yeah thats right! 99 is not 100 you have lost 1 point. Sure this effect (it's called volatility drag) is not that strong if your ETF is leveraged by 3 or 2 but you will still lose money for nothing and they sell this crap to retail investors!
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Futures, Options, CFDs and Knock-Out-Certificates/Warrants on the other hand are dynamical leveraged. Their leverage changes all the time, as they value changes. When their value increases the leverage-value falls, when they value decreases the leverage-value rises. So you don't will have any volatility drag. Sure you have some costs as these are leveraged products you have to pay interest but its less than a volatility drag can destruct in capital.
In the hedge fund world, we always use dynamical leveraged derivatives like Futures, Options, CFDs and Knock-Out-Certificates/Warrants, static leveraged products are mostly banned.