5 Leveraged ETF Winners of December

Wall Street put up a mixed show in December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7%, marking its eighth straight winning month – the longest such streak since 2018 (per CNBC). The S&P 500 slipped about 0.06% for the month, while the Nasdaq Composite finished down about 1%.

Santa Claus Rally Under Pressure

The final five trading sessions of the month were utterly downbeat, with the Nasdaq losing 1.6%, the S&P 500 retreating 1.3% and the Dow Jones falling 1.4%. For the second straight year, the S&P 500 is ending December with a four-day losing streak, once again putting the much-anticipated Santa Claus Rally at risk.

Historically, the Stock Trader’s Almanac notes that stocks tend to rise during the final five trading days of the year and the first two sessions of the new year — a seasonal pattern that now seems to be under threat, as mentioned in CNBC.

Specific Corners Won While Broad-Based Strength Absent

The S&P 500 rallied 24% in 2023, 23% in 2024 and 16% in 2025, resulting in an almost 80% gain over three years. That marks the strongest return over a three-year win streak since 2019-2021 when the index soared 90%, as quoted in the same CNBC article. It also represented the second-best three-year win streak since 2000.

But then, historically, the market has struggled to extend winning streaks beyond three years. The S&P 500 has not posted four consecutive annual gains since the five-year run from 2003 to 2007, the same CNBC article noted.

The Fed has issued hawkish guidance for 2026. The U.S. labor market cooled while inflation remains sticky. The net impact of Trump tariffs is yet to be seen and understood clearly. Developed-market central banks are unlikely to cut rates at the beginning of 2026.

Overvaluation and payoff concerns are thriving in the red-hot artificial intelligence (AI) space that drove the market over the past three years. Overall, geopolitics and uncertainty will rule in the near term. No wonder, some specific corners have emerged as winners in December.    

Leveraged ETF Areas of December

Defiance Daily Target 2X Long RKLB ETF RKLX – Up 115.4%

Rocket Lab Corp RKLB skyrocketed about 73% in December. The stock is benefiting from the uptick in investors’ attention toward the overall space economy. Rocket Lab’s successful move in the next-gen Neutron rocket and the securing of new funding from the Canadian Space Agency were other positives. Also, there has been a report about a potential $1.5 trillion SpaceX IPO for 2026 (per Bloomberg, as quoted on Yahoo Finance). SpaceX news acted as a cornerstone for the entire space investing arena and favored the ETF RKLB.

ProShares Ultra Silver AGQ – Up 44.5%

The silver and platinum rally outpaced gold in 2025 on industrial demand and tight supply dynamics.

Silver prices climbed to fresh highs, supported by supply constraints and strengthening industrial demand. Often considered an industrial metal, silver plays a critical role in modern technologies like AI and clean energy solutions.

Additionally, the U.S. dollar slumped materially in December with the Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund UUP losing about 4.2% during the month. A weakening greenback is also a favorable factor for commodity prices as they are priced in the U.S. dollar.

Tradr 2X Long ASTS Daily ETF ASTX – Up 41.9%

AST SpaceMobile Inc ASTS stock gained 27.7% in December. AST SpaceMobile is building the world’s first and only global cellular broadband network in space, accessible directly by standard smartphones (4G-LTE/5G devices) for commercial and government use, leveraging its extensive intellectual property and patent portfolio. Like Rocket Lab, the stock is another beneficiary of the space investing boom.

Direxion Daily MU Bull 2X Shares MUU – Up 38.9%

Micron Technology Inc MU stock gained 19.2% in December. In mid-December, the memory chip maker reported better-than-expected first-quarter fiscal 2026 results and provided strong guidance for the second quarter. The company’s top line was driven by robust demand for its high bandwidth memory (HBM) products.

GraniteShares 1x Short COIN Daily ETF CONI – Up 38.0%

Coinbase Global Inc COIN shares lost 14.1% in December. Coinbase is an American publicly traded company that operates the largest cryptocurrency exchange platform in the United States by trading volume. Increased regulatory scrutiny and the susceptibility of stablecoin revenue led to investors’ skepticism toward the stock.

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

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