The first quarter of 2013 has smiled on leveraged volatility exchange-traded products.

Highlighting a Bloomberg report, Brendan Conway of Barron's reports that, amidst concerns over crisis in Europe, more than $520 million has flowed into the ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF [profile] and the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-ETN [profile], with $620 million flowing into the Barclays iPath S&P 500 Short-term VIX Futures ETF [profile].

The funds' new shareholders may be paying a heavy price for their volatility hedge. Barron's notes that, "the failure of the crisis to play out means many investors are losing money quickly." 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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