The Fund’s
investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other investments, including risk related to the market, leverage,
imperfect correlations with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty, liquidity, valuation and legal
restrictions. The performance of a derivative may not track the performance of its reference asset for various reasons, including due to fees and other costs associated with it.
Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of
derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of the amount initially invested. As a result, the value of an investment in the Fund may change quickly and without warning. A swap on
an ETF may not closely track the performance of the Index due to costs associated with trading ETFs, such as an ETF’s premium or discount and the difference between
its market price and its net asset value. If the Index has a dramatic intraday increase or decrease that causes a material change in the Fund’s net assets, the terms of a swap
agreement between the Fund and its counterparty may permit the counterparty to immediately close the swap agreement with the Fund. In that event, the Fund may not be able to enter
into another swap agreement or invest in other derivatives to achieve its
investment objective. This may occur even if the Index reverses all or a
portion of its intraday movement by the end of the day.
Upon entering into certain derivatives contracts, such as swap agreements, and to maintain open positions in such agreements, the Fund may be
required to post collateral, the amount of which may vary. As such, the Fund may maintain cash balances, which may be significant, with service providers such as the
Fund’s custodian or its affiliates in segregated accounts. Maintaining larger cash and cash equivalent positions may also subject the Fund to additional risks, such as increased
credit risk with respect to the custodian bank holding the assets and the risk that a counterparty may be unable or unwilling to honor its obligations.
Counterparty Risk — If a counterparty is unwilling or unable
to make timely payments to meet its contractual obligations or fails to
return holdings that are subject to the agreement with the counterparty resulting in the Fund losing money or not being able to meet its daily inverse investment objective.
In addition, because the Fund may enter into swap agreements with a limited number of
counterparties, this increases the Fund’s exposure to counterparty credit risk. Further, there is a risk that no suitable counterparties will be willing to enter into,
or continue to enter into, transactions with the Fund and, as a result, the Fund may not be able to achieve its inverse investment objective or rebalance properly, which may result in
significant losses to the Fund, or the Fund may decide to change its inverse investment objective. The risk that no suitable counterparties will enter into or continue to
provide swap exposure to the Fund may be increased when there is significant market volatility.
Rebalancing Risk
— If for any reason the
Fund is unable to rebalance all or a part of its portfolio, or if all or a portion
of the portfolio is
rebalanced incorrectly, the Fund’s investment exposure may not be consistent with its investment objective which may lead to greater losses or reduced gains. In these instances, the
Fund may have investment exposure to the Index that is significantly greater or significantly less than its stated investment objective. Additionally, the Fund may close to purchases and
sales of Shares prior to the close of trading on the NYSE Arca or other national securities listing exchanges where Shares are listed and incur significant losses.
Cash Transaction Risk— Unlike most ETFs, the Fund currently
intends to effect creations and redemptions principally for cash, rather
than principally for in-kind securities, because of the nature of the financial instruments held by the Fund. As a result, the Fund is not expected to be tax efficient and will incur brokerage and
financing costs related to buying and selling securities and/or obtaining short derivative exposure to achieve its investment objective thus incurring additional expenses than
other funds that primarily effect creations and redemptions in kind. To the extent that such costs are not offset by transaction fees paid by an authorized participant, the Fund may
bear such costs, which will decrease the Fund’s net asset value.
Intra-Day Investment Risk— The intra-day performance of Fund shares traded in the secondary market will be different from the performance of
the Fund when measured from the close of the market on a given trading day until the close of the market on the subsequent trading day. An investor that purchases shares
intra-day may experience performance that is greater than, or less than, the Fund’s stated investment objective.
If there is a significant intra-day market event and/or the securities of the Index experience a significant change in value, the Fund may not meet
its investment objective, be unable to rebalance its portfolio appropriately, or may experience significant premiums or discounts, or widened bid-ask spreads.
Daily Inverse Index Correlation Risk— A number of factors may affect the Fund’s ability to achieve a high degree of inverse correlation with
the Index and therefore achieve its daily inverse investment objective. The Fund’s exposure to the Index is impacted by the Index’s movement. Because of this, it is unlikely
that the Fund will be perfectly exposed to the Index at the end of each day. The possibility of the Fund being materially over- or under-exposed to the Index increases on days when the
Index is volatile near the close of the trading day.
Market disruptions, regulatory restrictions, fees, expenses, transaction costs, financing costs related to the use of derivatives, investments in
ETFs, directly or indirectly, the Fund’s valuation methodology differing from the Index’s valuation methodology, accounting standards and their application to income items,
disruptions, illiquidity or high volatility in the markets for the securities or derivatives held by the Fund and regulatory and tax considerations, among other factors, will also
adversely affect the Fund’s ability to adjust exposure to meet its daily inverse investment objective.