GraniteShares terminates 2x Lucid ETF after 92% drop
The leveraged single-stock ETF launched just over a year ago and managed to lose nearly everything, a textbook case of volatility decay in action
GraniteShares has pulled the plug on its 2x Long LCID Daily ETF (ticker: LCDL) after the fund lost approximately 92% of its value. The product, designed to give traders double the daily returns of Lucid Group stock, ended up delivering double the pain instead.
As of July 14, the ETF’s net asset value had cratered to a negative $0.0156, while shares were still trading at $0.2876.
How a leveraged bet went sideways
The GraniteShares 2x Long LCID Daily ETF launched on April 22, 2025, with a straightforward pitch: give investors twice the daily performance of Lucid Group’s NASDAQ-listed shares.
But here’s the thing about leveraged ETFs that reset daily. They work fine over 24-hour windows. Stretch that holding period into weeks or months, and something called “volatility decay” starts eating your position alive.
In English: if a stock drops 10% one day and rises 10% the next, a 2x leveraged fund doesn’t break even. It loses money. Multiply that dynamic across dozens of volatile trading sessions and you get year-to-date losses north of 91%.
The fund carried an expense ratio of 1.15%, though gross expenses could reach as high as 4.67%.
Part of a broader cleanup
LCDL isn’t dying alone. GraniteShares had already announced the liquidation of several other leveraged ETFs, including BULX, ETRL, and MSDD, with their final trading days landing around June 18. The LCDL termination is the latest in what’s becoming a pattern of single-stock leveraged products getting quietly shelved after the math stops working.
What this means for investors
The LCDL blowup is a case study in why financial advisors consistently warn that leveraged ETFs are not buy-and-hold instruments. These products explicitly state in their prospectuses that they target daily returns and that performance over longer periods can deviate significantly from the expected multiple of the underlying asset.
The negative NAV is particularly instructive. A fund trading at $0.2876 with a NAV of negative $0.0156 means the market price had completely decoupled from the fund’s actual underlying value. Investors buying at that market price were essentially paying for an empty shell.