Eight of the ten most actively traded exchange-traded products in August were leveraged or inverse, and the other two were Bitcoin.
The usual explanation for that is a bull market and a generation with a high risk appetite. Justin Shack's explanation is that a segment of the retail base is trading these products because the ordinary route to a middle-class life has closed, and the leveraged ETF is being used to make up the difference.
"Maybe I can't afford that first house, maybe I can't afford that middle class lifestyle the way that my parents or grandparents could."
Shack runs market structure at Rosenblatt Securities and has watched product launches through both calm and stressed markets, which is what Dominic Chu brought him on the ETF Edge segment to talk about.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 2 numbers that matter.
👤 Guest: Justin Shack, Partner and Head of Market Structure at Rosenblatt Securities
🎙️ Host: Dominic Chu, who presents the ETF Edge segment on CNBC
📰 Published: 14 September 2026 on CNBC's Halftime Report
🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 2 min
Key Takeaways
The most active corner of the ETF market is now almost entirely leveraged, inverse or Bitcoin
Eight of August's ten most active exchange-traded products were ultra-long or ultra-short, and the other two were Bitcoin
Four of the five most actively traded names in the whole market were single-stock leveraged ETFs
What retail wants from these products is a large move in a short window, not exposure
This wave of retail traders is not the first online-brokerage wave repeating itself
Shack's account is that people are reaching for high-risk products because the first house and the middle-class lifestyle look out of reach
1. Eight of the Ten Most Active
Chu's opening question was what retail traders are actually doing with the ETF products now on offer, and how they trade them. Shack answered with the activity tables rather than with flows.
The demand is for speed rather than exposure: "Well, we tend to see a lot of interest in products that offer the opportunity for like a quick movement in a short period of time to capture that if you want to trade short term," he said
On the August data: "If we look at the products that were most active, the ETPs in the month of August, eight out of the top ten were leveraged or inverse type products ultra long, ultra short. The other two were Bitcoin."
His own reading of the two Bitcoin products is that they fit the same category — a vehicle for a big move in a short time
The same pattern holds when the screen is widened past exchange-traded products to every name in the market. Of the five most actively traded stocks, Shack said, four were ultra-long or ultra-short single-stock ETFs and the fifth was Bitcoin
Five of the top ten in that ranking were ETFs in the same category
2. The House They Can't Buy
Chu asked what is driving the sentiment, and whether retail traders, as a generalization against institutions, are more geared toward big moves and more willing to tolerate the risk that comes with them. Shack agreed with the premise and then explained it in terms that had nothing to do with risk tolerance.
A segment of the retail base is geared that way, he said, "And that's a difference between what we see today and what we saw. Maybe with the first wave of online brokerage 25, 30, 35 years ago."
The change he points to is in why people are trading, not in what they are trading: "There's more of a sense that like, hey, I need to get involved with these really sort of high risk, high reward type products because maybe I can't afford that first house, maybe I can't afford that middle class lifestyle the way that my parents or grandparents could."
He put leveraged ETFs and sports betting in the same sentence as responses to the same problem: "So I'm turning to these markets and sports books and everything else out there to try to make up that difference."
Bonus Insights
Chu framed the segment around a question Shack did not answer directly — whether the new wave of ETF products launched into this demand is well received, or whether some of it is missing the mark amid the frenzy
The credential Chu used to introduce him is about longevity rather than a call: that Shack has watched products being unveiled over the years and seen what happens to them in times of calmness and of stress
Shack's bottom line is that the leveraged and inverse products dominating the most-active lists are not a risk-appetite story but an affordability one, and that the retail base trading them has more in common with a sports-book customer than with the first generation of online brokerage clients.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Rosenblatt Securities (Shack's firm, where he is a partner and heads market structure)
Bitcoin exchange-traded products (The other two of August's ten most active ETPs, and the fifth of the five most active names in the market — which he groups with the leveraged products as a fast-move vehicle)
Leveraged and inverse single-stock ETFs (The ultra-long and ultra-short products that took four of the five most actively traded slots in the whole market)
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