Investors who piled into leveraged bets on the Nasdaq have cashed in big time since President Trump hit pause on tariffs last month. And no ETF has captured that rally like ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ).
TQQQ, which tracks 3x the daily return of the Nasdaq 100, has surged 81% since April 9, the day Trump announced a temporary freeze on new tariffs.
The fund is up 31% in just the past month, far outpacing major indexes and reminding investors just how reactive markets still are to trade headlines.
That’s a 180 from the first quarter, when TQQQ cratered 27% as trade tensions escalated.
Over that same stretch, the Nasdaq fell 8%. But since April’s bottom, the index rallied 26%, and leveraged ETFs like TQQQ have amplified the bounce.
Despite the risk — triple-leveraged funds can quickly turn brutal when the market moves the other way — TQQQ remains one of the most popular tools for traders chasing tech-fueled rallies.
By the end of Q1, it held nearly $20 billion in assets under management.
On Tuesday, TQQQ closed at $71, gaining 7% on the day, but trading volume was well below average coming off the Memorial Day long weekend.
Nasdaq leads the comeback, but risks linger
While the entire market has been caught in the crosswinds of Trump's tariff policies, the Nasdaq has been especially sensitive.
The initial downturn in Q1 wasn’t just about trade tensions. In January, Chinese researchers unveiled DeepSeek, a low-cost AI model billed as a rival to ChatGPT.
The news sent U.S. markets into a tailspin, with tech stocks leading the decline and nearly $1 trillion in market cap wiped out.
“DeepSeek is a Chinese AI large-language model believed to be on par with some of the best models released by OpenAI and others, despite not having access to leading AI accelerators,” wrote Morningstar’s Brian Colello.
Despite the scary headlines, investor interest in the sector is ramping up again. Many see the recent rally as a sign that the long-term bull case for artificial intelligence is far from over.
Not everyone is convinced, though. Martin Chorzempa, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned that Washington’s hardline approach to China’s AI progress could backfire.
“I worry that we will have a knee-jerk response to ratchet up controls heavily, before we fully think through the trade-offs,” he said.
For now, with tariffs on hold and AI optimism building, TQQQ remains Wall Street’s go-to multiplier bet on the stock rebound.
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