The recent fall off in the energy market pushed oil prices briefly into bear market territory. However, exchange traded fund traders largely missed out on the bearish turn.
Over the past week, the United States Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO), which tracks West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, fell 9.1%.
Meanwhile, the United States Short Oil (NYSEArca: DNO), which tracks the opposite moves of the West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, rose 9.1% and DB Crude Oil Short ETN (NYSEArca: SZO), which tracks the simple inverse of oil, gained 8.8% over the past week. Additionally, for leveraged options, the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil (NYSEArca: SCO), which tries to reflect the two times inverse or -200% daily performance of WTI crude oil, increased 18.4% and DB Crude Oil Double Short ETN (NYSEArca: DTO), which also follows a -200% performance of oil, jumped 17.4%. Lastly, the VelocityShares 3x Inverse Crude (NYSEArca: DWTI), which takes the three times inverse or -300% performance of crude oil, surged 27.9%. [Investors Capitalize on Oil Swings with Leveraged ETFs]
However, ETF investors have been pulling out of the inverse oil options over the past week. For instance, DWTI saw $32.0 million in out flows over the last five trading sessions, DTO experienced $13.2 million in redemptions and SCO lost $30.8 million in assets, according to ETF.com.
Oil futures briefly dropped into bear market territory Tuesday before paring losses toward the end of the day. Since the May 6 high, USO fell as much as 21.1% Tuesday and United States Brent Oil Fund (NYSEArca: BNO) declined as much as 22.4%. [Oil ETFs Slide Back Into Bear Market]