NUGT vs QLD

NUGTDDirexion Daily Gold Miners Index Bull 2X ETF

QLDAProShares Ultra QQQ

In short

NUGT Gold miners with the volume turned up. NUGT aims for 200% of the daily move of the MarketVector Global Gold Miners Index, a veteran way to press a view on mining shares without margin or an options account.

QLD The 2x dial on the Nasdaq-100. QLD aims for twice the index's daily move, half the dose of the 3x crowd, and it has been running that playbook since 2006. The multiple resets every session.

Stated mandate

NUGT The fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, of 200% of the performance of the MarketVector Global Gold Miners Index.

QLD The fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, equal to twice the daily performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index.

Why people hold it

• NUGT One ticker, 2x daily exposure to a global gold-miners index. No margin account, no options chain, no borrow to arrange.direxion.com
• Trading since 2010, making it one of the longest-running leveraged miner funds around. It has traded through several full gold cycles.
• Actively traded and among the better-traded names in the leveraged cohort, which matters for a tool built to be entered and exited quickly.
• The index reaches globally, not just US-listed miners, so the basket follows where the gold digging actually happens.

• QLD Costs 0.89% net of a waiver through September 30, 2027 (0.96% gross), below the leveraged-bull category median and under Ultra stablemates ROM (0.93%) and DDM (0.95%).
• Hits its stated daily 2x mark with very little drift, one of the tighter implementations among the roughly 100 leveraged bull funds in its group.
• A multi-billion-dollar, actively traded fund, so entering and exiting rarely means hunting for the other side of the trade.
• Trading since June 2006, which makes it one of the longest-running leveraged equity funds on the US shelf rather than a recent product-shelf experiment.

Worth knowing

• NUGT Leverage resets daily. Hold longer than a day and results can drift well away from 2x the index's move over that stretch, especially in choppy markets.
• At 1.13% a year, the fee runs above the typical leveraged fund's, and it applies whichever way gold moves.
• Doubling a mining index puts this among the more volatile funds even inside a leveraged peer group. Position size does the heavy lifting here.

• QLD The 2x objective covers one day only. Hold longer and daily resets plus compounding can push results away from twice the index's move over that stretch, in either direction.proshares.com
• Magnification runs both ways: a down day in the Nasdaq-100 lands on shareholders at roughly double size, same as an up day.
• Cheap for geared exposure, still well above a plain unleveraged Nasdaq-100 tracker. The waiver is set to lapse September 30, 2027, after which the 0.96% gross rate applies unless renewed.

Full NUGT profile⁠

Full QLD profile⁠