What this shows: for every trading day, the total dollar volume (shares traded × closing price, per fund, summed across the universe) of leveraged long US equity ETFs divided by the total dollar volume of leveraged short US equity ETFs. Readings above 1 mean long-side leveraged trading dominates; spikes well above 1 mark episodes of intense speculative positioning (late 2021, post-2023 AI trade). Readings below 1 mean short-side leveraged flows dominate, as during the 2008–09 and 2022 selloffs. The near-white line is the S&P 500 on a logarithmic left axis for context.

Universe: all major US-listed leveraged equity ETFs with 2x-or-more daily leverage (long) or −2x-or-more (short), including single-stock funds: Long — SPXL, UPRO, TQQQ, SOXL, TNA, FAS, SSO, NVDL, TSLL, MSTU, CONL. Short — SPXS, SPXU, SQQQ, SOXS, TZA, FAZ, SDS, NVDX, TSLQ, FNGD. The series starts at the November 2008 launch of SPXL/SPXS (the first modern 3x long/short pair); the earlier 2x-only era (SSO/SDS, from 2006) is excluded so the universe stays comparable through time.

Why dollar volume, not share volume: inverse leveraged ETFs trade at structurally low prices (they decay toward zero over time), so their raw share counts are enormous and would swamp the ratio. Multiplying shares by price puts both sides on an equal economic footing — dollars risked per day.

Reading the chart: the ratio is intentionally jagged — it is a daily flow measure and spikes on single-name manias (TSLA, NVDA, MSTU eras) and panic days. Use the window selector or zoom (scroll / shift+drag) to isolate regimes; the 60-day average in the stats strip shows the smoother trend. The dashed gold line marks 1.27× — below it, short-side leveraged dollar volume dominates.

Data: Yahoo Finance daily volume × close (finance.yahoo.com) · chart data (JSON) · updated daily by leveraged_volume-update.py.