How to make 267% – or lose 90% – on treasury bonds

Getting double or triple the daily return of an index doesn’t mean you will outperform the index twofold or threefold in the long run. (Image: Getty)

The Wall Street Journal

Mon, 31 Mar 2025

By Jason Zweig If you’d bought the leading exchange-traded fund investing in long-term US Treasury bonds at its peak in August 2020, you’d have lost 41.3% by now – even after reinvesting your interest income.Two ETFs that amplify the daily returns on long-term Treasurys make that wild performance look tame.'Extra-touchy funds'Over the same period, the Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3X Shares ETF, which seeks to triple the daily return of a long-term Treasury bond index, lost 90.2%, according to FactSet.&nbs...

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