Can Leveraged ETFs Safely Grow Long-Term Investments? This post compares the performance of five pairs of ETFs. Within each pair is an unleveraged ETF and a leveraged ETF based on five different market indexes. Read on to learn if leveraged ETFs consistently outperformed unleveraged ETFs in the long run. The ETFs are compared over three different timeframes: since the ETF initially started trading (its launch date), over the last five years of trading, and over the next to last five years of trading. By long-term investment, this post means buying-and-holding an ETF for a period of several years or decades – not just a couple of weeks, days, or minutes within a day. The first of the three timeframes begins with the launch date for an ETF. Because different ETFs can have different launch dates, the first timeframe can start on different trading dates for different ETFs. ETFs are compared in this post via their overall percentage change and compound annual growth