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Is it possible to see TZA at 6,000 ever again? What kind of decline in the Russell 2000 would it take?

Since TZA was originally at 6000 and now at 15, is it possible, with a huge future downturn in the Russell 2000 index that TZA could again reach that level of 6000? What kind of downturn exactly would it take? Specifically what kind of price action would make TZA return to that level of 6000? A four year gradual bear market decline of 50 percent? 100 successive down days? Several consecutive massive declines over successive days? Or a gradual decline? Is there a calculator or projection model that could help identify the TZA price action in a bear market? Or is TZA stuck in a low trading range due to time decay and pricing model?

user14180
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the pricing model makes all inverse leveraged ETF decay over time. When the price gets low the manager can once again do a stock split to make the share price more attractive. The manager usually states a price range that will prompt a stock split, but actually doing the split is at their discretion

The Russell 2000 has to decrease a lot yes, but probably just a flash crash of 10% in a day can extend the TZA to extremely high bids and asks. A flash crash that far through the order books would wreck the liquidity of all the underlying assets and especially the derivatives products based on (derived from) those assets. So a mathematical formula to price the ETF during a period of high volatility and low liquidity becomes a lot less of a science and more of a random walk. A good example of this would be to look at the 2010 flash crash and the price behavior of the VXZ ETF, where it spiked to $400/share from maybe $60/share

CQM
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  • rty -10% (in one day) => tza +30%. vxz is a vix etf so not really comparable. – assylias Apr 03 '14 at 01:09
  • @Assylias right, vxz is backed by mid month volatility futures, while TZA aims to replicate 3x moves in the Russell 2000 it is just backed by short Russell 2000 swaps and long treasuries. During a period of illiquidity its pricing structure will still go haywire – CQM Apr 03 '14 at 12:12
  • since it was created the ETF has always returned -3x the index +/-3%. So nothing as wild as you suggest. – assylias Apr 03 '14 at 12:34
  • @assylias then the answer to OP's question is: "it can't" – CQM Apr 03 '14 at 14:28