DUST and NUGT have literally seen record trading volume days since inception just in the past few trading days, as interest in trading the latest move in the Miners is clearly alive and well.
DUST and NUGT track the same underlying index that GDX does, the Arca Gold Miners Index, but are structured to deliver three times the daily inverse and levered long return respectively, to that index.
NUGT has $721 million now in assets under management and averages a massive 24.3 million shares traded daily, while DUST only has $143 million in AUM and 1.3 million shares daily.
Thus, as we have mentioned in these spots before, despite the actual returns that the Gold Miners have delivered, it seems that flows have consistently favored the bulls, as GDX has pulled in +1.2 billion YTD as well.
Given the recent volatility in the Miners space, induced likely from the recent volatility we have seen in spot precious metals themselves, these funds are certainly not for the weak of heart and should be used as part of sophisticated short term trading and/or hedging strategies only. Names of interest that are top components in the Arca Gold Miners Index are GG (11.97%), ABX (10.50%), NEM (8.51%), GOLD (5.48%), and AUY (5.14%).