Another Way To Look At FAZ, FAS, SKF, UYG

in other words, leveraged financials ETFs. These two charts are the area charts, plotting the weekly combined price of SKF (double short financial) and UYG (double long financial) for the top chart, and of FAZ (triple short financial) and FAS (triple long financial).



Even ignoring the spikes, SKF+UYG's current price level is less than 1/2 of December 08 level. FAZ+FAS's current price level is less than 1/3 of December 08 level. So, if you are not a day trader, the winning long-term trade for these leveraged ETFs since December 08 would have been to short ALL.

If it's any comfort, unleveraged financial ETF combo hasn't fared that well either. The weekly combined price of SEF (unleveraged financial) and XLF (unleveraged financial) for the same duration shows a decline of about 25%, mostly due to the decrease in SEF.