Leveraged ETFs in Singapore: How TQQQ and SPXL Work and How to Buy Them [2026]

In the 12 months to 30 September 2026, the S&P 500 returned 15.74%, while SPXL, a fund built to deliver three times the index's daily move, returned 33.21% at net asset value. Three times 15.74% is 47.22%. The missing 14 percentage points came from the way these funds work, and that mechanism is the first thing to understand before buying one.

A leveraged ETF is an exchange-traded fund that uses swaps and futures to multiply an index's return for a single day. ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) seeks daily results that correspond to three times (3x) the daily performance of the Nasdaq-100, before fees, and its summary prospectus dated 28 September 2026 lists net annual operating expenses of 0.78% after a fee waiver. The word that matters in that objective is "daily".

Investors in Singapore buy these funds the same way they buy any US-listed ETF: through a brokerage account with US market access. The extra step is a product review. Brokers here generally treat leveraged and inverse ETFs as Specified Investment Products (SIPs), and before you can trade listed SIPs your broker must run a Customer Account Review to check your knowledge or experience.

If you want more exposure to US large caps, the main routes are a 3x Nasdaq-100 fund such as TQQQ, a 3x S&P 500 fund such as SPXL, or an unleveraged index ETF such as VOO or QQQ held for longer, possibly with a larger position. Each route behaves very differently once markets stop moving in a straight line.

This guide explains how TQQQ and SPXL work, why 3x daily does not mean 3x over a year, what a sideways or falling market does to them, how to buy them from Singapore, the tax points that apply, and the risk controls worth setting before you place an order.

TQQQ and SPXL at a glance

Both funds are US-domiciled, trade in US dollars and reset their leverage every day. They differ mainly in the index they track and their costs.

Source: ProShares TQQQ summary prospectus, ProShares TQQQ, Direxion SPXL fact sheet, Vanguard VOO fact sheet, MoneySense (as of 25 October 2026)

What is a leveraged bull ETF?

A leveraged bull ETF aims to rise by a multiple of an index on a day the index rises, and fall by the same multiple on a day it falls. To do that with US$100 of investors' money, a 3x fund needs about US$300 of exposure to the index. It gets the extra exposure through derivatives.

TQQQ's holdings show how this looks. As of 23 October 2026, the fund held 10 Nasdaq-100 total return swaps with banks including BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, JPMorgan, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and Morgan Stanley, plus Nasdaq-100 E-mini futures. Each swap pays the fund the index return on an agreed amount, and the fund pays the bank a financing rate in return.

At the end of each trading day, the fund rebalances so that its exposure is back to three times its new net assets. After an up day, it buys more exposure. After a down day, it sells. This daily reset keeps the fund on target for the next day, and it is the reason longer-term returns drift away from a simple 3x.

Two costs sit on top of the expense ratio. Financing on the swaps rises with US interest rates, and for SPXL, swap financing and related costs are excluded from the adviser's 0.95% expense limit. Trading costs from rebalancing every day are also paid inside the fund.

TQQQ: 3x the daily Nasdaq-100

The Nasdaq-100 held 101 securities as of 30 September 2026, the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. It leans heavily towards technology and communication services, so a handful of very large companies drive a large share of its daily moves. TQQQ triples that concentration. The fund launched on 9 February 2010 and showed net assets of about US$34.24 billion on its ProShares fund page in October 2026.

SPXL: 3x the daily S&P 500

SPXL, launched on 5 November 2008, seeks daily investment results of 300% of the S&P 500's performance, before fees and expenses. The S&P 500 covers about 500 large US companies across all sectors, so SPXL is spread across far more companies and sectors than TQQQ. Its ticker is also used elsewhere: on the London Stock Exchange, SPXL is the GBP trading line of the SPDR S&P 500 UCITS ETF (SPYL), an ordinary unleveraged fund with a 0.03% TER.

Why 3x daily does not mean 3x over time

Leverage applies to each day's return, and each day starts from a new base. Over two or more days, the fund's result depends on the order and size of the moves, a property called path dependency.

A two-day round trip

Take an index at 100 that rises 10% to 110, then falls 9.09% back to 100. The index ends where it started. A 3x fund rises 30% on day one, from 100 to 130, then falls 27.27% on day two, to 94.55.

Example only. Assumes a 3x daily target, no fees, no financing costs and no tracking error.

The fund lost 5.45% while the index was flat. That loss is the cost of the daily reset in a market that goes up and down. You can check the arithmetic in Python:

fund = 1.0
for day in [0.10, -1/11]:
    fund *= 1 + 3 * day
print(round((fund - 1) * 100, 2)) # -5.45

Trending, falling and choppy markets

The same mechanism can work for you in a steady trend. Over 10 trading days, three index paths give three very different results for a 3x fund.

Example only. Assumes a 3x daily target, no fees and no financing costs.

In a steady rise, the fund beats 3x the index because each day's gain is tripled from a higher base. In a steady fall, it loses a little less than 3x. In a choppy market, it loses almost three times as much as the 3x figure suggests, even though the index barely moved.

Index and 3x daily fund returns over 10 days in rising, falling and choppy markets

What volatility does over a year

The larger the daily swings, the bigger the drag. TQQQ's prospectus includes a table of estimated one-year returns. With the Nasdaq-100 flat for the year, TQQQ is estimated to return −3.0% at 10% index volatility, −17.1% at 25% and −52.8% at 50%, before fees and financing. A standard approximation reproduces those figures: a 3x fund on a flat index loses about 1 − e^(−3σ²), where σ is the index's annual volatility.

Source: ProShares TQQQ summary prospectus (as of 25 October 2026). The 40% row is an example only, computed with the same approximation; all rows exclude fees and financing.

What actually happened to SPXL

Fund history shows the same pattern. Over each period to 30 September 2026, SPXL returned between 1.6 and 2.4 times the S&P 500's annualised return, never 3x.

Source: Direxion SPXL and SPXS fact sheet (as of 30 September 2026). Multiples are calculated from the fact sheet figures.

Over the five years, the S&P 500 gained about 91% in total and SPXL about 173%, against the 272% that tripling the index's five-year return would suggest. SPXL still beat the index, because those years rose more than they fell. In a weaker five years, the same mechanism could have left SPXL behind the index or deep in loss.

SPXL annualised returns against the S&P 500 and 3x the index over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years to 30 September 2026

What can go wrong with TQQQ and SPXL

Most of the risk in a 3x fund comes from a few specific events, and each one is worth sizing a position against.

A single large down day

A 3x fund loses three times the index's fall on a single day. An index drop of 33.3% in one session would, in theory, wipe out the fund, and every smaller fall takes a proportional share. On a S$5,000 position, ignoring currency moves:

Example only. Assumes a 3x daily target, no fees and no change in the SGD/USD exchange rate.

US exchanges halt trading market-wide when the S&P 500 falls sharply in a day, so a full one-day wipe-out is unlikely. Gaps still happen overnight, when news arrives while the US market is closed and the next open is far below the last close.

Loss on a S$5,000 position in a 3x fund after one-day index falls of 3% to 33.3%

A bear market and the climb back

Losses compound in the other direction too. If the index falls 1.7% a day for 21 trading days, it ends about 30.2% lower and a 3x fund about 66.7% lower. To get back to its starting point, the index then needs a gain of 43.3%. The 3x fund needs about 200%.

Example only. Recovery gain equals 1 ÷ (1 − fall) − 1.

If the index then climbs back steadily over the next 21 days to its starting level, the 3x fund recovers too, but ends about 3.6% below where it began. Over a long, choppy bear market the gap can be much larger, and a fund that has fallen 80% to 90% leaves very little to compound when the recovery comes.

Counterparties, financing and tracking

A swap is a contract with a bank. If a counterparty fails, the fund can lose part of the exposure it relies on, and counterparty risk is one of SPXL's disclosed fund risks. Financing costs rise with US interest rates and are deducted from returns. On very volatile days, the fund's closing value can also differ from three times the index because of rebalancing costs and timing.

Trading and execution risk

You trade these funds during US hours, which in Singapore run from 9.30pm to 4am while the US is on daylight saving time and from 10.30pm to 5am after it ends in November. Stop-loss orders help limit losses during the session, but they cannot guarantee a price when the market gaps at the open. A stop set at 10% below the last close executes at the next available price, which after a bad overnight session can be far lower.

How to buy leveraged ETFs from Singapore

The buying process is the same as for any US-listed ETF, with one added check. You need a brokerage account with US market access, the W-8BEN tax form most brokers ask for, and USD in the account or an FX conversion at the time of the trade. The guide to buying US ETFs from Singapore covers that workflow step by step.

Pass the broker's product review

Under MAS rules, a broker must run a Customer Account Review (CAR) before you open an account to trade listed SIPs. You meet the requirement if at least one of these applies:

• You hold relevant educational qualifications, or a professional finance-related qualification.
• You have at least 3 consecutive years of relevant working experience in the past 10 years.
• You have made at least 6 transactions in listed SIPs in the last 3 years.
• You complete the free SGX Online Education Programme module and pass its assessment.

A CAR outcome expires after 3 years if you have transacted in a listed SIP only once or not at all during that period. Unlisted SIPs use a separate Customer Knowledge Assessment (CKA). Each broker runs its own review, so you pass it separately at each one.

Check the ticker, exchange and order

Search by the full fund name as well as the ticker. TQQQ and the US-listed SPXL are both US ETFs priced in USD, while SPXL in London is an unleveraged GBP line of an Irish fund. Use limit orders, check the bid-ask spread before you trade, and avoid placing orders in the first and last minutes of the US session, when spreads tend to be wider.

Are leveraged ETFs suitable for long-term investors?

Both funds have a daily target. For TQQQ, smaller index gains or losses and higher index volatility contribute to returns worse than the daily target, and SPXL and SPXS should not be expected to provide three times the return of the benchmark over periods longer than a day.

Some investors hold them for years anyway, and in a strong market that has paid off: TQQQ's NAV returned 21.42% a year over the five years to 30 September 2026. The outcome depends on a path you cannot see in advance. A long-term holder takes on the risk of an 80% or larger fall, a recovery that needs several hundred per cent to make good, and years of financing costs.

A more common use is short-term, expressing a view over days or weeks. For long-term growth, an unleveraged index fund gives full market exposure without the daily reset, at a fraction of the cost. VOO's expense ratio is 0.03%, against TQQQ's 0.78% net. On S$5,000, that is about S$1.50 a year in fees, against S$39 for TQQQ before financing.

Taxes and currency

Singapore generally does not tax individuals on gains from selling shares and other financial instruments. Gains can be taxed as income when the buying and selling amounts to a trade, and frequent short-term trading in leveraged funds is the kind of activity where that question comes up.

Dividends from US funds face US withholding at 30% for nonresident aliens unless a lower treaty rate applies. Leveraged funds pay little or nothing in dividends, so this matters less than it does for an ordinary US equity ETF.

US estate tax matters more for large holdings. A non-US-citizen, nonresident estate must file Form 706-NA if US-situated assets exceed US$60,000 at death, and shares in US-domiciled funds such as TQQQ and SPXL count as US-situated. A tax adviser can review your position if your US holdings approach that level.

Both funds trade in USD. A stronger Singapore dollar reduces your return in SGD terms, and each conversion carries an FX spread.

Risk controls before placing an order

A short checklist can prevent the most expensive mistakes with 3x funds.

• Size for a total loss. Put in only an amount you could lose entirely without changing your financial plans.
• Run the stress test. Multiply your position by three times a 10% and 20% index fall, and decide in advance whether you would hold or sell.
• Set a holding period. Decide how long you plan to hold before you buy, and review the position at the end of it.
• Check the time you can give it. These funds need watching during US hours, which fall in Singapore's night.
• Keep it separate. Hold leveraged positions apart from your long-term portfolio, so a bad trade does not pull money from your core holdings.

Build long-term exposure with StashAway

For money you plan to hold for years rather than days, General Investing powered by StashAway puts you in a managed, globally diversified ETF portfolio matched to your risk level, with no daily reset working against you and no need to watch US markets through Singapore's night. You can fund it with cash or SRS, and the annual fee starts at 0.8% on the first S$25,000 and falls as your balance grows.

Portfolio values rise and fall with markets, so you could get back less than you invest.

Frequently asked questions

Here are short answers to common questions about TQQQ, SPXL and other leveraged ETFs.

Is TQQQ a good long-term investment?

TQQQ is built for a daily target, and its long-term result depends on the path the Nasdaq-100 takes. In a steady rise it can beat 3x the index, while a flat but volatile year can cost it 17% or more before fees. Investors who hold it for years accept the risk of falls of 80% or deeper.

Why do leveraged ETFs lose value in sideways markets?

The daily reset buys after up days and sells after down days. When the index swings up and down without going anywhere, the fund repeatedly buys high and sells low, so its value drifts lower even though the index ends flat. Higher volatility makes the drag larger.

Can Singaporeans buy TQQQ?

Yes, through a broker with US market access. Most brokers here treat leveraged ETFs as Specified Investment Products, so you need to pass a Customer Account Review first, based on qualifications, work experience, past trades or the free SGX education module.

Is SPXL 3x SPY?

Not quite. SPXL targets 300% of the S&P 500's daily return, and SPY is an unleveraged ETF tracking the same index. Over any period longer than a day, SPXL's return will differ from three times SPY's; over the year to 30 September 2026 it was about 2.1x the index.

Can you lose all your money in a leveraged ETF?

In principle, yes. A one-day index fall of about 33% would erase a 3x fund, and a long bear market can take it down 80% to 90%, from which it needs gains of several hundred per cent to recover. Market-wide trading halts make a single-day wipe-out unlikely, but they do not prevent deep cumulative losses.

What is the difference between TQQQ and QQQ?

QQQ holds the Nasdaq-100 shares and moves one-for-one with the index. TQQQ uses swaps and futures to target three times the index's daily move, resets every day and charges a higher fee, with financing costs on top.

Do I need a CKA or a CAR for leveraged ETFs?

Leveraged ETFs trade on an exchange, so brokers use the Customer Account Review for listed SIPs. The CKA applies to unlisted SIPs such as structured notes and certain unit trusts. A CAR outcome lapses after 3 years if you have traded listed SIPs once or not at all in that time.