Derivatives Risk
— Derivatives are
financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks,
bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. Investing in derivatives may be considered
aggressive and may expose the Fund to greater risks, and may result in larger losses or smaller gains,
than investing directly in the reference assets underlying those derivatives, which may prevent the Fund
from achieving its investment objective.
The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in
addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other
investments, including risk related to the market, leverage, imperfect correlations with underlying
investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability,
counterparty, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The performance of a derivative may not track
the performance of its reference asset for various reasons, including due to fees and other costs
associated with it.
Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose
the Fund to losses in excess of the amount initially invested. As a result, the value of an investment in
the Fund may change quickly and without warning. A swap on an ETF may not closely track the performance
of the Index due to costs associated with trading ETFs, such as an ETF’s premium or discount and
the difference between its market price and its net asset value. If the Index has a dramatic intraday increase or decrease that causes a material change in the Fund’s net assets, the terms of a swap agreement between the Fund and its
counterparty may permit the counterparty to immediately close the swap agreement with the Fund. In that
event, the Fund may not be able to enter into another swap agreement or invest in other derivatives to
achieve its investment objective. This may occur even if the Index reverses all or a portion of its
intraday movement by the end of the day.
Upon entering into certain derivatives contracts, such as swap agreements, and to maintain open positions in such agreements, the Fund may be required to post collateral,
the amount of which may vary. As such, the Fund may maintain cash balances, which may be significant,
with service providers such as the Fund’s custodian or its affiliates in segregated accounts.
Maintaining larger cash and cash equivalent positions may also subject the Fund to additional risks, such
as increased credit risk with respect to the custodian bank holding the assets and the risk that a counterparty may be unable or unwilling to honor its obligations.
Counterparty Risk — If a counterparty is unwilling or unable
to make timely payments to meet its contractual obligations or fails to return holdings that are subject
to the agreement with the counterparty resulting in the Fund losing money or not being able to meet its
daily leveraged investment objective.
In addition, because the Fund may enter into swap agreements with a limited number of counterparties, this increases the Fund’s exposure to counterparty credit
risk. Further, there is a risk that no suitable counterparties will be willing to enter into, or continue
to enter into, transactions
with the Fund and, as a result, the Fund may not be able to achieve its leveraged investment objective
or rebalance properly, which may result in significant losses to the Fund, or the Fund may decide to
change its leveraged investment objective. The risk that no suitable counterparties will enter into or
continue to provide swap exposure to the Fund may be increased when there is significant market volatility.
Rebalancing Risk
— If for any reason the
Fund is unable to rebalance all or a part of its portfolio, or if all or a portion of the portfolio is
rebalanced incorrectly, the Fund’s investment exposure may not be consistent with its investment
objective which may lead to greater losses or reduced gains. In these instances, the Fund may have
investment exposure to the Index that is significantly greater or significantly less than its stated
investment objective. Additionally, the Fund may close to purchases and sales of Shares prior to the close
of trading on the NYSE Arca or other national securities listing exchanges where Shares are listed and
incur significant losses.
Intra-Day Investment
Risk— The intra-day performance of Fund shares traded in the secondary market will be different from the performance of the Fund when measured from
the close of the market on a given trading day until the close of the market on the subsequent trading
day. An investor that purchases shares intra-day may experience performance that is greater than, or less
than, the Fund’s stated investment objective.
If there is a significant intra-day market event and/or the
securities of the Index experience a significant change in value, the Fund may not meet its investment
objective, be unable to rebalance its portfolio appropriately, or may experience significant premiums or
discounts, or widened bid-ask spreads.
Daily Index Correlation
Risk— A number of factors
may affect the Fund’s ability to achieve a high degree of correlation with the Index and therefore
achieve its daily leveraged investment objective. The Fund’s exposure to the Index is impacted by
the Index’s movement. Because of this, it is unlikely that the Fund will be perfectly exposed to the Index at the end of each day. The possibility of the Fund being materially over- or under-exposed to the Index increases
on days when the Index is volatile near the close of the trading day.
Market disruptions, regulatory restrictions, fees, expenses, transaction costs, financing costs related
to the use of derivatives, investments in ETFs, directly or indirectly, the Fund’s valuation
methodology differing from the Index’s valuation methodology, accounting standards and their
application to income items, disruptions, illiquidity or high volatility in the markets for the
securities or derivatives held by the Fund and regulatory and tax considerations, among other factors,
will also adversely affect the Fund’s ability to adjust exposure to meet its daily leveraged investment objective.
In addition, the Fund may not have investment exposure to all of the securities in the Index or its weighting of investment exposure to the securities may be different from
that of the Index. The Fund may also invest in or have exposure