Benefits and risk

Leveraged and inverse products
Risks
Product features

Before making an investment decision, it is important to understand the key risks of leveraged and inverse products (L&I Products) first.

Key benefits

  • Easy to trade: You can trade L&I Products via your intermediary (broker or bank) on the stock exchanges like trading stocks.
  • Transparent: L&I Products have clear investment objectives, strategies and mechanics. Both product information and trading information are easily accessible.
  • Cost effective: You can use L&I Products for hedging or taking leveraged/inverse position at a lower cost than using some other trading strategies such as margin financing and short selling.
  • Established regime: Functions of the L&I Product issuer, participating dealers and market makers are well-defined. The operations of L&I Products are monitored by their trustees.

Key risks

  • Investment risk: Trading L&I Products involves investment risk and are not intended for all investors. There is no guarantee of repaying the principal amount.
  • Volatility risk: Prices of L&I Products may be more volatile than conventional exchange traded funds (ETFs) because of using leverage and the rebalancing activities.
  • Unlike conventional ETFs: L&I Products are different from conventional ETFs. They do not share the same characteristics and risks as conventional ETFs.
  • Long-term holding risk: L&I Products are not intended for holding longer than the rebalancing interval, typically one day. Daily rebalancing and the compounding effect will make the L&I Product’s performance over a period longer than one day deviate in amount and possibly direction from the leveraged/inverse performance of the underlying index over the same period. The deviation becomes more pronounced (i) in a volatile market; (ii) when the leverage factor goes up; (iii) for inverse exposure; and/or (iv) for longer holding periods. Investors should not expect the actual percentage return of investing in the L&I Product to be equal to the multiple and/or the inverse multiple change in the underlying index for periods of longer than one day.
    As a result of daily rebalancing, the underlying index’s volatility and the effects of compounding of each day’s return over time, it is possible that the leveraged product will lose money over time while the underlying index increases or is flat. Likewise, it is possible that the inverse product will lose money over time while the underlying index decreases or is flat. Investors of L&I Products should actively manage and monitor their investments as frequently as daily.
  • Risk of rebalancing activities: There is no assurance that L&I Products can rebalance their portfolios on a daily basis to achieve their investment objectives. Market disruption, regulatory restrictions or extreme market volatility may adversely affect the rebalancing activities.
  • Liquidity risk: Rebalancing typically takes place near the end of a trading day (shortly before the close of the underlying market) to minimize tracking difference. The short interval of rebalancing may expose L&I Products more to market volatility and higher liquidity risk.
  • Intraday investment risk: Leverage factor of L&I Products may change during a trading day when the market moves but it will not be rebalanced until day end. The L&I Product’s return during a trading day may be greater or less than the leveraged/opposite return of the underlying index.
  • Portfolio turnover risk: Daily rebalancing causes a higher levels of portfolio transaction when compared to conventional ETFs, and thus increases brokerage and other transaction costs.
  • Correlation risk: Fees, expenses, transactions cost as well as costs of using financial derivatives may reduce the correlation between the performance of the L&I Product and the leveraged/inverse performance of the underlying index on a daily basis.
  • Futures contracts risks: Investment in futures contracts involves specific risks such as high volatility, leverage, rollover and margin risks. The leverage component of futures contracts can result in a loss significantly greater than the amount invested in the futures contracts by the product. Exposures to futures contracts may lead to a high risk of significant loss by the product. There may be imperfect correlation between the values of the underlying assets and the futures contracts, which may prevent the product from achieving its investment objective.
  • Rolling of futures contracts risks: A “roll” occurs when an existing futures contract is about to expire and is replaced with a futures contract representing the same underlying but with a later expiration date. The value of the product’s portfolio (and so the net asset value per unit) may be adversely affected by the cost of rolling positions forward as the futures contracts approach expiry. This effect may be more pronounced in products with higher leverage ratio.
  • Risk of mandatory measures imposed by relevant parties: Regarding the product’s futures positions, relevant parties (such as clearing brokers, execution brokers, participating dealers and stock exchanges) may impose certain mandatory measures for risk management purpose under extreme market circumstances. These measures may include limiting the size and number of the product’s futures positions and/or mandatory liquidation of part or all of the product’s futures positions without advance notice to the product’s manager. In response to such mandatory measures, the product manager may have to take corresponding actions in the best interest of the product’s investors and in accordance with the product’s constitutive documents, including suspension of creation of the product’s units and/or secondary market trading, implementing alternative investment and/or hedging strategies and termination of the product. These corresponding actions may have an adverse impact on the operation, secondary market trading, index-tracking ability and the NAV of the product. While the manager will endeavour to provide advance notice to investors regarding these actions to the extent possible, such advance notice may not be possible in some circumstances.
  • Trading time differences risk (for futures-based L&I Product which invests in futures traded on an overseas futures exchange): As the overseas futures exchange may be open when units in the L&I Product are not traded and priced on SEHK, the value of the futures in the L&I Product’s portfolio, or the value of constituents in the underlying index to which such futures contracts are linked (“Index”), may change when investors will not be able to purchase or sell the L&I Product’s units. Also, the price movement of futures may trigger daily price limit (if applicable) on overseas futures exchange during trading hours of the SEHK, as a result, the futures may not be tradable while the L&I Product is still trading on the SEHK. Differences in trading times between the overseas futures exchange and the SEHK may increase the level of premium/discount of the unit price to its net asset value.
    The overseas stock exchange (in which the Index constituents are traded) and the overseas futures exchange (in which the futures are traded) may also have different trading hours. Trading of the Index constituents may close earlier than trading of the futures, so there may continue to be price movements for the futures when the Index constituents are not trading. In such case, there may likely be imperfect correlation between the value of the Index constituents and the futures, and therefore enlarge the deviation of daily performance between the L&I Product and leveraged / inverse performance of the Index. This may adversely affect the L&I Product from achieving its investment objective.
  • Termination risk: L&I Products must be terminated when all the market makers resign. Termination of the L&I Product should take place at about the same time when the resignation of the last market maker becomes effective.
  • Leverage risk: The use of leverage will magnify both gains and losses of L&I Products resulting from changes in the underlying index or, where the underlying index is denominated in a currency other than the product's base currency, from fluctuations in exchange rates.
  • Unconventional return pattern (for inverse products only): Inverse products aim to deliver a daily return that is a multiple of the opposite of the underlying index return. If the value of the underlying index increases for extended periods, or where the exchange rate of the underlying index denominated in a currency other than the inverse product's base currency rises for an extended period, inverse products can lose most or all of their value.
  • Inverse products vs short selling (for inverse products only): Investing in inverse products is different from taking a short position. Because of rebalancing, the performance of inverse products may deviate from a short position in particular in a volatile market with frequent directional swings.


21 May 2020