Best-Performing Leveraged ETF Areas of Last Week

Wall Street was upbeat last week despite facing a slew of downbeat economic data points. Jobs data came in softer, consumer sentiment was weaker, and inflation came in hotter. Still, hopes of a Fed rate cut this month may have boosted market performance.

Meanwhile, corporate strength remained resilient, IPO markets remained strong, and the tech boom fueled by the AI euphoria remained in place. The heightened trade tensions, too, have receded to a large extent.

Overall, the S&P 500 gained by 1.6%, the Dow Jones advanced by 0.9% and the Nasdaq Composite surged by 2%. Let’s discuss the week in detail.

Decline in Consumer Sentiment

The University of Michigan’s preliminary Survey of Consumers revealed that overall sentiment declined to 55.4 in September, marking a 4.8% sequential decline and a 21% year-over-year drop. It was also the lowest reading since May, as quoted on Yahoo Finance.

Index of Consumer Expectations fell by 7.3% sequentially and 30.4% annually to 51.8 in September, while the Current Economic Conditions were not that bad. The sentiment around the current economic conditions slipped 0.8% month on month and 3.3% year over year to 61.2. Consumers are probably fearing the uncertainty regarding tariffs and the likelihood of higher inflation. 

Spike in Inflation

The U.S. annual inflation rate grew to 2.9% in August 2025, the highest since January, after staying the same at 2.7% in both June and July, in line with market expectations, as quoted on tradingeconomics.

On a monthly basis, the CPI rose 0.4%, the highest since January, above forecasts of 0.3%, per the above-mentioned tradingeconomics article. The increase was fueled by rise in gasoline prices and stronger food inflation.

Core inflation held steady at 3.1%, unchanged from July and in line with February’s high. On a monthly basis, core CPI increased 0.3%, in line with July’s growth and market expectations, as mentioned in the same tradingeconomics article.

Downbeat August Jobs Data

The U.S. economy added 22,000 jobs in August 2025, lower than an upwardly revised 79,000 in July and market forecasts of 75,000, as quoted on tradingeconomics. Jobs data for June were revised down by 27,000, and the change for July was revised up by 6,000.

With these revisions, the previously reported employment data for June and July combined got cut by 21,000. The unemployment rate, at 4.3%, changed little in August, according to government data.

Job growth was mainly noticed in sectors such as health care and social assistance. Job losses were also pronounced in wholesale trade and manufacturing.

Fed Rate Cut Bets

At the time of writing, there are 93.4% chances of a 25-bp rate cut in the September meeting, while chances of a 50-bp rate cut are 6.6%, per the CME FedWatch Tool. Notably, the odds of a 25-bp cut have increased since Sept. 5, 2025, as markets are no longer expecting a large cut due to a hot inflation print.

Hot IPO Market

Six companies went public over a five-day period, each raising more than $100 million — a landmark not seen since November 2021, according to Renaissance Capital, as quoted on Yahoo Finance.

Yahoo Finance went on to mention that last week’s listings included the likes of Gemini Space Station GEMI, the parent company of crypto exchange Gemini, coffee chain Black Rock Coffee Bar BRCB, transportation technology company Via Transportation VIA, engineering service provider Legence LGN, Figure Technology Solutions FIGR, a fintech company and the Swedish "buy now, pay later" lender Klarna KLAR.

Top-Performing Leveraged ETFs in Focus

Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few winning leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) of last week.

Leveraged IONQ

Defiance Daily Target 2X Long IONQ ETF IONX – Up 69.9%

GraniteShares 2x Long IONQ Daily ETF IONL – Up 69.9%

IonQ Inc. IONQ provides quantum systems through the cloud on Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, as well as through direct API access. The IONQ shares gained more than 32% last week.

Leveraged Rigetti Computing

Tradr 2X Long RGTI Daily ETF RGTU – Up 55.7%

Defiance Daily Target 2X Long RGTI ETF RGTX – Up 54.5%

Rigetti Computing RGTI — a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing shares — jumped 25% over past week.

Leveraged CoreWeave

Tradr 2X Long CRWV Daily ETF CWVX – Up 53.5%

Leverage Shares 2X Long CRWV Daily ETF CRWG – Up 53.1%

The cloud-computing company CoreWeave CRWV jumped 26.2% over the past week. It specializes in providing cloud-based graphics processing unit infrastructure to artificial intelligence developers.

Leveraged Oracle

Defiance Daily Target 2X Long ORCL ETF ORCX – Up 44.8%

Oracle (ORCL) shares gained 22% over the past week after issuing upbeat guidance (read: Digital Revolution ETF (TRFK) Hits New 52-Week High).

Leveraged Micron

Direxion Daily MU Bull 2X Shares MUU – Up 42.0%

GraniteShares 2x Long MU Daily ETF MULL – Up 41.8%

Micron MU jumped 20.4% over the past week. Micron is benefiting from strategic positioning in the rapidly expanding AI-driven memory and storage markets.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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