Late last week we saw an increase in trading volume in a leveraged long ETF, Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X (NYSEArca: TNA), as the ETF hit up against its 50 day moving average (currently $57.81) on a leg up in equities.
This ETF is designed to provide three times the daily long exposure to the Russell 2000 Index, and is generally used by aggressive traders and speculators, as well as opportunistic hedgers.
In addition to a spike in trading volume last week, more than $200 million flowed out of the fund as well into recent this strength, making it one of the leaders in ETF fund outflows last week.
Small Cap equities such as iShares Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM) have lagged their large cap counterparts such as iShares S&P 500 (NYSEArca: IVV) this year, but in the trailing one month period small caps have relatively out-performed.
In the early going this Monday morning, the Index has caught a bid once more (+0.18%), so we will likely continue to see Russell 2000 linked ETFs trade heavily.