ETF of the Year Nominee: NVDL Returned Nearly 5X in 2024
The fund that doubles Nvidia’s performance brought leveraged strategies to more investors as trading volumes jumped.
This is the second in a series of weekly articles previewing the five finalists for ETF of the Year, to be announced in a ceremony on April 23 in New York City.
Investors who piled into Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) stock last year were richly rewarded as the shares nearly tripled on growing appetite for artificial intelligence products and services.
What about those who picked up the GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF (NVDL)? They got it back, as the name says, two times.
Leveraged Gains
NVDL, among the five nominees for etf.com’s ETF of the Year award, jumped nearly fivefold last year, pulling in a net $3.5 billion. Launched in December 2022 at just over $4, it crossed $81 in June 2024 as NVDA soared. Volumes surged: Days of more than 20 million shares trading hands weren’t uncommon toward the end of the year, roughly quadruple where they were when 2024 began.
Leveraged ETFs took the investing world by storm over the past few years as issuers created vehicles that, for a fee, doubled or tripled the returns of a particular stock. From Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to Tesla Inc. (TSLA), investors sought strategies that would offer from one-and-a-half times to triple the return of a high-flying or plummeting equity.
“NVDL stood out as a transformative force” last year, New York-based GraniteShares wrote. “While Nvidia’s leadership in AI reshaped the market, NVDL enabled investors to capitalize on this trend through a simple, effective and impactful tool.”
NVDL Fees
GraniteShares, which manages $6.9 billion in 33 ETFs, says NVDL is a low-cost fund with its 1.15% management fee. While holders of Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), which charges 0.03%, or the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), with a 0.09% fee, may disagree, leveraged ETFs require active, hands-on management to beat a stock’s return, which is not necessary with funds that track an index.
To beat NVDA's performance, NVDL’s managers select from call and put options with one-week to one-month terms and so-called deep in-the-money calls or synthetic forward options strategies, according to etf.com data.
GraniteShares reminds investors that NVDL, like other leveraged ETFs, isn't a long-term investment and to monitor their portfolios due to its volatility. As its etf.com fund page states, “the shares take on added volatility due to the lack of diversification,” and “purchasers should conduct their own stock research prior to initiating a position.”
That’s been true this year with NVDL, as it's plummeted 30% in 2025, more than double NVDA’s decline. Still, investors must be hoping for a rebound since they've dropped a net $827.2 million into the fund so far this year.
