Could Investing $10,000 in This Leveraged ETF Make You a Millionaire?

The article argues that ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (SSO) has delivered a 14.5% average annual return since its June 2006 inception and that a $10,000 investment could hypothetically grow to more than $1 million in 35 years if that pace continued. However, it emphasizes the risks of leverage, noting the ETF can fall twice as fast as the S&P 500, has declined about 9% year to date versus the index's 3.8% drop, and charges a 0.87% expense ratio. The piece is mostly a cautionary commentary rather than a market-moving event.

Analysis

The article is really a volatility-decay and path-dependence lesson, not a bullish case for the index. A 2x daily product can compound surprisingly well in persistent uptrends, but the same leverage becomes a tax on any choppy or mean-reverting tape; that makes the real variable not “market direction” but realized volatility. In practice, the fund is most dangerous when investors extrapolate trailing returns into a regime where dispersion, rates, and macro shocks keep index swings elevated.

Second-order, this argues for a barbell: if the broad market is grinding higher on a narrow leadership base, leveraged beta can underperform badly despite positive headlines because daily rebalancing forces buy-high/sell-low mechanics. That is especially relevant if AI/mega-cap concentration keeps index-level gains intact while breadth deteriorates, since the product is implicitly short volatility and short drawdown recovery time. The opportunity set is therefore less about owning SSO and more about monetizing the gap between realized vol and implied vol via option structures.

The contrarian miss is that “double daily return” is not the same as “double long-run return,” so the right comparison is not SSO versus cash SPX but SSO versus a financed call spread or a levered futures overlay. If the market enters a lower-vol regime, the product can work better than skeptics expect; if macro data stay sticky and rates remain unstable, decay plus fee drag should continue to erode long-horizon appeal. The catalyst to watch is a vol break lower over several weeks, which would temporarily improve compounding and make the product look deceptively efficient.

From a relative-value perspective, the article is indirectly supportive of low-cost unlevered beta and volatility sellers rather than outright risk-taking. It also reinforces that any retail flow into leveraged ETFs can amplify intraday swings in the underlying through dealer hedging, creating short-lived dislocations around sharp market moves.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Avoid initiating new long SSO positions for strategic portfolios; if seeking equity exposure, prefer SPY/IVV over the next 6-12 months because the leverage drag becomes unfavorable in a choppy tape.
• Express a view on elevated realized volatility with a short-dated SSO call overwrite or put spread hedge; target 1-2 month horizons where daily rebalancing drag is most pronounced and theta can be harvested.
• If you want leveraged upside, use SPX call spreads instead of SSO for the next 3-6 months; better defined risk/reward and no path-dependent decay from daily reset mechanics.
• Pair idea: long quality megacap growth basket (NVDA, NFLX) vs short SSO tactically if breadth weakens; leverage product should underperform in a narrow-led rally with elevated intraday swings.