Gold rose more than 70% to nearly $5,000 an ounce, while silver soared 230% to more than $103 an ounce. Those who shorted the metal suffered heavy losses.
Starting in the third quarter of 2025, retail investor enthusiasm for certain leveraged ETFs, options strategies, and meme stocks cooled dramatically.
Inverse leveraged ETF DUST is down 91% in one year, while options income ETF MSTY is down 72%.
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Over the past few years, the market has seen a number of trends that have resulted in significant market volatility. In addition to artificial intelligence (AI is a major driver of the “Magnificent 7” technology stocks that lead the S&P 500 and continue to strengthen), some of the booms in the second half of 2025 through January 2026 include:
While nothing can stop these sectors from recovering again if the case holds true, the retail enthusiasm that gave them ammunition to fend off naysayers cooled significantly starting in the third quarter of 2025, with the redemption sell-off appearing to reflect their strengths. Although there were some exceptions, by and large these departments did rediscover the law of gravity. The following ETFs represent sharp declines in these trends:
Diy13 / iStock via Getty Images ·Diy13 / iStock via Getty Images
As the price of gold surges to new stratospheric highs in an unprecedented way, investors who have been short gold for a long time, such as ETFs such as DUST, are suffering correspondingly huge losses.
One of the biggest market shakeups in 2025-2026 is a huge bull run in gold and silver. As of this writing, gold prices have risen more than 70% in the past year from $2,778 an ounce. to $4,983, quickly approaching $5,000. Silver’s rise during the same period was even greater, rising from $31 to over $103, an increase of 230%.
Still, many have been short gold’s performance over the past few decades as it has historically been a safe-haven asset that has failed to generate returns that could come close to the S&P 500, let alone tech stocks or other fast-rising stocks.
DUST is an ETF that uses leverage to produce a 200% move opposite the reference market (in DUST’s case, the price of gold). So as gold prices continue to climb, DUST loses double Amount per day, accordingly. So it’s no surprise that it’s down -79% since August 2025 and -91% last year.
While some analysts believe gold is overbought, past 24-7 Wall Street articles have mentioned why the bull market has every reason to continue for quite some time.
Bitcoin’s sharp sell-off, which has seen prices drop from $124,000 in October to $89,000 now, has dragged down stocks and ETFs that also depend on Bitcoin’s fortunes.
The YieldMax ETF model takes advantage of volatile stocks in bull markets and uses a call option strategy to generate significant income. These ETFs perform well when tied to Magnificent 7 stocks. When pegged to a massive cryptocurrency experiencing a sell-off, the results are not ideal. Michael Saylor’s agenda is to load Bitcoin into strategic (NASDAQ: MSTR) As Bitcoin rallies, there’s been a massive bull run in the vaults. MSTR, considered Bitcoin’s stock proxy play, has lost more than 60% of its value since August.
MSTY is a YieldMax ETF tied to MSTR. While its yield currently stands at 294%, it pays out a large portion of its dividends out of its NAV, causing its valuation to fall from $101 in August to $29.80 currently. A decrease of -71.94%.
Will Buckner/Flickr/CC BY 2.0 ·Will Buckner/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
Game Stop became the first meme stock and spawned a movie as well as a slew of other stocks that experienced short squeeze appreciation.
Movie, stupid money (2023) is a comedy about the 2021 Game Stop short squeeze. Essentially, a group of retail investors communicating on Reddit discovered a large institutional short position in Game Stop stock. By constantly placing small retail buy orders, their acquisitions create a short squeeze that forces institutions to buy back shares at higher valuations. Subsequently, Hertz, AMC, Kos, and a number of other stocks replicated the “meme stock” phenomenon.
MEME is an ETF created in late 2021 by Roundhill Investments. The Nasdaq has just peaked, and the technology sector is down about 32% in 2022, enough to cause MEME to shut down by the end of 2023. In 2025, interest in meme stocks began to resurface, and Roundhill CEO Dave Mazza decided to relaunch MEME as a weekly rebalanced actively managed ETF. Its holdings target stocks with high volatility, strong retail investor interest, and “cutting-edge themes.”
Since reaching as high as $11.47 in October 2025, MEME has fallen to $7.82, a drop of approximately -31%.
While all three of these ETFs, as well as others in related sectors, are likely to make a comeback, they’re a good reminder that Wall Street’s old adage about greed still applies, so timing your sales is the secret to profit: “Bulls make money. Bears make money. The pigs were slaughtered.“
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