Tracks 3x the daily return of a US large-cap financials index. Banks, insurers and card issuers dominate it, so it is sensitive to interest rates and the yield curve.
Prices as of 2026-10-23. Source: Data via FinanceDataReader · Policy rate via FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
FAS is Direxion's 3x US financials ETF, launched in November 2008. It targets three times the daily return of the banks, insurers, card networks and asset managers in the S&P 500. Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan, Visa and Mastercard carry the most weight.
It listed in the middle of the Lehman crisis, fell more than 90% from its high in its first months, and needed five years to get back above that high. Financials are sensitive to rates and the credit cycle, so FAS lurched with the 2011 European debt crisis, the 2020 crash and the 2023 regional bank failures. In rebound years after a crisis, such as 2009 and 2013, its returns jump.
This site has a separate F family of strategies built for FAS alone. Rules fitted to a single ticker carry a higher risk of fitting the past too closely, so check whether they hold up in other periods. How to check is described in walk-forward validation and parameter plateaus.
Using real closing prices only (adjusted for splits and dividends) from 2008-11-19, FAS's worst peak-to-trough fall was -91.6%, from the 2008-12-08 high to the 2009-03-06 low over 60 trading days. It took another 1209 trading days (about 4.8 years) to get back above that high, on 2013-12-23. The last close is 14.4% below the all-time high.
A fall of 91.6% needs a 1,093% gain to get back to even. Any strategy on FAS has to be judged on whether you could have held it through a stretch like this. Why drawdown comes before return.
The standard deviation of daily returns is 4.61% over the whole history
and 2.72% over the last year. By the rough rule
days ≈ (target ÷ daily volatility)², a 1.5% take-profit target needs about
less than one trading day at the recent pace, so most tranches close at the target well before the time cut.
Where the rule comes from.
Three preset strategies run over 2016-01-04 to 2026-10-23 with a $10,000 seed and 0.1% fees, alongside simply holding the same instrument.
| Strategy | Return | Max drawdown | CAGR | Trades | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A2 Standard, base rules (no defence signal) | +117.83% | -58.78% | +7.49% | 1238 | 74.6% |
| A1 Defensive, base rules | +139.63% | -32.01% | +8.44% | 1240 | 84.9% |
| A3 Aggressive, base rules (no defence signal) | +133.46% | -71.18% | +8.18% | 1182 | 75.1% |
| Buy and hold | +480.60% | -85.96% | +17.72% | - | - |
Read the drawdown column before the return column. Split buying leaves much of the seed in cash, which is the main reason its drawdown is smaller — treat it as lower exposure rather than protection.
Test FAS with your own settings →The standard (diamond) preset, one calendar year at a time. A strategy worth using should have good years and bad years mixed — if one year made everything, that was the year, not the rules.
| Year | Strategy | Strategy MDD | Buy and hold | B&H MDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | -12.42% | -19.41% | -6.00% | -40.61% |
| 2025 | +38.21% | -13.52% | +12.10% | -42.87% |
| 2024 | +18.34% | -13.49% | +80.17% | -20.78% |
| 2023 | -6.46% | -21.07% | +10.82% | -46.09% |
| 2022 | +10.91% | -23.72% | -45.29% | -64.92% |
| 2021 | +7.46% | -16.62% | +123.46% | -24.34% |
| 2020 | -11.46% | -50.16% | -36.68% | -85.39% |
| 2019 | +14.76% | -15.00% | +110.00% | -19.69% |
| 2018 | -25.84% | -38.87% | -34.23% | -54.03% |
| 2017 | +16.94% | -10.70% | +62.62% | -18.17% |
Across these 10 years the strategy beat buy and hold in 4 and trailed it in 6. It lost money in 4 years; buy and hold lost in 4. In FAS's worst year here, 2022, holding returned -45.3% while the strategy returned +10.9%. In its best year, 2021, holding returned +123.5% and the strategy +7.5%. Giving up much of the best years is the price of the smaller drawdowns.
FAS listed on 2008-11-19, and every number on this page uses real prices only. In the backtest tool you can go back to 1998, but the years before listing are index-based: FAS listed on 2008-11-19. Prices from 1998-12-22 to the day before listing are converted from the 1x index, not real trades: the daily return of Financial Select Sector ETF (XLF, 1x) multiplied by 3, minus the fund fee (0.89%/yr), borrowing cost (2x the 13-week T-bill rate). Treat that range as an estimate. Even close-only strategies such as A and D can shift by 1–2 points a year over this range depending on the conversion assumptions (dividends, costs, index differences). See how the index-based history is built and checked.
Only for a single day. Over longer stretches volatility drag pulls the result below 3x in choppy markets and above it in a sustained trend. The arithmetic is here.
Whole shares only. If a tranche is allocated less than one share's price, it buys nothing. Raise the seed or lower the number of tranches.
The Today's Orders page computes the next session's buy limit and each tranche's sell target from your start date. It is a calculation, not advice, and no orders are placed.