Tracks 3x the daily return of the Nasdaq-100.
Prices as of 2026-10-23. Source: Data via FinanceDataReader · Policy rate via FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
TQQQ is ProShares' 3x Nasdaq-100 ETF, launched in February 2010. It targets three times the daily return of the hundred largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta together make up close to half of the index.
It is spread across more companies than SOXL, so its daily swings are smaller, but that does not mean it falls less in a bear market. When rates rise quickly, as in 2022, the discount rate on growth stocks rises and the whole index drops together; a 3x fund can then fall by more than three times the 1x decline. The Nasdaq-100 itself lost more than 80% in the 2000–2002 dot-com bust.
In split buying, TQQQ takes longer than SOXL to reach the same take-profit target. With a 1.5% target the average holding period is longer and more tranches end at the time cut. Rather than reusing SOXL settings, adjust the target and the time cut together. A side-by-side run on identical settings is in TQQQ vs SOXL.
Using real closing prices only (adjusted for splits and dividends) from 2010-02-11, TQQQ's worst peak-to-trough fall was -81.8%, from the 2021-11-19 high to the 2022-12-28 low over 277 trading days. It took another 491 trading days (about 1.9 years) to get back above that high, on 2024-12-11. The last close is 24.0% below the all-time high.
A fall of 81.8% needs a 448% gain to get back to even. Any strategy on TQQQ 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 3.85% over the whole history
and 3.74% 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) | +526.74% | -33.55% | +18.56% | 1178 | 78.2% |
| A1 Defensive, base rules | +361.30% | -16.27% | +15.23% | 1182 | 87.2% |
| A3 Aggressive, base rules (no defence signal) | +571.05% | -34.78% | +19.31% | 1132 | 78.9% |
| Buy and hold | +2856.38% | -81.75% | +36.90% | - | - |
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 TQQQ 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 | +10.46% | -14.18% | +26.26% | -33.70% |
| 2025 | +30.99% | -23.07% | +33.81% | -56.95% |
| 2024 | +25.07% | -8.49% | +64.06% | -37.37% |
| 2023 | +32.07% | -13.58% | +198.96% | -33.36% |
| 2022 | +39.77% | -17.54% | -79.31% | -80.63% |
| 2021 | +10.04% | -17.53% | +90.83% | -30.40% |
| 2020 | +8.36% | -25.17% | +99.30% | -69.69% |
| 2019 | +16.02% | -18.48% | +129.71% | -30.47% |
| 2018 | -18.59% | -33.48% | -23.90% | -57.99% |
| 2017 | +24.15% | -4.12% | +112.36% | -14.65% |
Across these 10 years the strategy beat buy and hold in 2 and trailed it in 8. It lost money in 1 year; buy and hold lost in 2. In TQQQ's worst year here, 2022, holding returned -79.3% while the strategy returned +39.8%. In its best year, 2023, holding returned +199.0% and the strategy +32.1%. Giving up much of the best years is the price of the smaller drawdowns.
TQQQ listed on 2010-02-11, and every number on this page uses real prices only. In the backtest tool you can go back to 1993, but the years before listing are index-based: TQQQ listed on 2010-02-11. Prices from 1993-01-01 to the day before listing are converted from the 1x index, not real trades: the daily return of Nasdaq-100 Index (^NDX; the 1x ETF QQQ from March 1999) multiplied by 3, minus the fund fee (0.84%/yr), borrowing cost (2x the 13-week T-bill rate) and an extra 1.5%/yr tracking cost. 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.