ProShares Ultra S&P 500

ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (SSO) aims to deliver twice the daily return of the S&P 500 Index, using stocks plus swaps and futures. Because its leverage resets every day, returns over months or years can stray far from 2x the index, often for the worse in choppy markets. With $8.8 billion in net assets as of August 31, 2026, it dwarfs Direxion's rival 2x fund, SPUU, and charges 0.84% a year.

• Over the year to Oct 27, 2026, SSO returned +20.1%, 5th of 6 among similar funds.
• Its 5-year annualized return was +1.7%.
• Its worst full calendar year was 2022 (-39.0%); its best was 2021 (+60.9%).
• The deepest fall in its price history was 59% (Feb 19, 2025 to May 9, 2025), not yet recovered.

As of Aug 31, 2026, most of the fund sat in cash, Treasury bills and money-market holdings (19.58% of net assets), with its exposure coming from 12 swap and futures positions rather than from owning the stocks outright.

• Over the three months to Aug 31, 2026, investors added a net $378.0M (creations minus redemptions, per the N-PORT report).
• Monthly total returns reported for that quarter: -2.63%, -0.71%, +4.94%.

SSO is built around the S&P 500 Index, run by S&P Dow Jones Indices. The index covers 500 of the largest US-listed companies, weighted by market capitalization (a company's total stock market value), so the biggest firms count most. The index's makeup is reviewed every September, with weight adjustments in March, June and December. As of August 31, 2026, stocks made up about 69% of the fund's net assets, led by NVIDIA (5.6%), Apple (4.8%) and Microsoft (3.9%).

ProShare Advisors uses a mathematical model to add the rest of the 2x exposure with derivatives. These are mainly total return swaps, where a large bank agrees to pay the index's return, and futures contracts. Spare cash sits in Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and a ProShares money market ETF. If a swap partner fails to pay, the fund can lose money.

The fund rebalances every day. It adds exposure after the index rises and trims it after a fall. Because of this daily reset, compounding drives longer-term results. In a ProShares example, if the index fell 20% over a year with 50% volatility (large daily swings), the fund would lose an estimated 50.2%, not 40%. A one-day index drop near 50% could wipe out the whole investment.

• SSO charges 0.84% a year.
• Of that, 0.75% is the management fee; the rest covers other fund expenses.
• The fee includes a 0.04% waiver from the adviser, which may end.
• Using the prospectus's standard example, $10,000 invested would cost about $86 in the first year and $1,081 over 10 years (assuming a 5% annual return).

SSO resets its 2x leverage daily, and ProShares warns that results over longer periods can differ significantly from twice the index's return.

SSO magnifies market swings. It lost 40.9% in the first quarter of 2020, during the COVID crash, and 38.9% in 2022, its worst calendar year from 2016 through 2025. From the market's January 3, 2022 peak to its October 12 low, the fund fell 46.7%. It did not get back to that level until March 1, 2024, about 16.6 months after the low. Someone who had to raise cash during a year like that could be forced to cash out near the bottom.

Gains have been large too, averaging 22.7% a year over the 10 years to December 31, 2025. Income is small: a 0.68% trailing yield, paid quarterly, as of October 27, 2026. Costs add up at 0.84% a year, or $1,081 over 10 years in the SEC's standard $10,000 example. Past results don't predict future ones, and a plan should look at the whole portfolio, not one fund.

Matched by leveraged/inverse funds on the same index (s&p 500), same direction.