The iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSEArca: IEF) and the iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSEArca: TLT) are among the 10 best ETFs this year in terms of asset-gathering proficiency.
Combined, IEF and TLT have brought in almost $4.6 billion, underscoring the difficulty of betting against an asset class that in 2013 was cast aside. With rates falling 50 basis points this year, traders have closed out their short positions and then bought into the market, pushing yields even lower in the latest round of short-covering, reports Ben Eisen for MarketWatch. [Treasury ETFs Strengthen on Growth Uncertainty, Short-Covering]
Despite the bullishness in IEF, TLT and other Treasury ETFs, some investors have insisted on trying to time another yield spike, using bearish Treasury futures contracts or the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (NYSEArca: TBT) as they wait for yields to rise above 3%. [Inverse Bond ETFs: 2014’s Definition of Insanity]
TBT is perhaps the most well-known leveraged Treasuries on the market. Nearly $4.6 billion in assets under management at the end of last year affirms as much. However, adventurous traders can play normally staid Treasuries for out-sized gains on the upside and downside with the following ETFs.
As inverse and leveraged products, the following group is geared toward risk-tolerant traders that have the ability to closely monitor their positions. When a bearish ETF is featured, we were sure to include its long equivalent and vice-versa for the bullish members of this list.