After a shaky start to 2025, risk is back on the menu.
Investor appetite for it has returned from a post-Liberation Day lull, with thematic, high-volatility and leveraged funds seeing increased interest as investors adapt to uncertainty about the economic impact of varied US tariffs. One of the more popular risk-on ETFs is Cathie Wood’s ARK fund, which takes highly concentrated bets on individual stocks and saw a major drawdown in 2022 but has since rebounded, soaring 30% so far this year. As hedged strategies like buffer ETFs grow in popularity, risk-taking tactics will also continue to evolve. “Whatever was going on with the tariff situation, I think people have kind of accepted it,” said Dan Sotiroff, a senior research analyst at Morningstar. “The risk appetite right now is high.”
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Funds that tap specific segments of the market, like a large- or small-cap value index, are common among investing risk-takers. While those funds have exposure to high-volatility meme stocks, they’re also diversified enough to protect against the downsides of that volatility, Sotiroff said. Taking on specific sectors, such as tech (in funds like Invesco’s QQQ), materials and energy, can also be risky, with even more potential for losses associated with subsectors like semiconductors.
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Charles Champagne, head of ETF strategy at AllianzIM, said he sees vehicles like inverse ETFs and leveraged ETFs as trading tools. Other higher-risk funds that may be worth a look offer concentrated exposure into particular markets, including:
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Roundhill’s Daily 2X Long Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGX), which doubles the daily exposure of the Magnificent Seven, comprising Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.
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State Street’s Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), which aims to represent the energy sector within the S&P 500.
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Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which invests primarily in AI-focused companies.
Still, overall investor risk tolerance may be lower than in decades past. “You see a lot more investors moving in towards these hedged vehicles,” Champagne said. “They still remember the bad years of 2022 and even the Great Financial Crisis. I think it’s still very top of mind.”
A Risk Too Far: To be sure, there’s a fine line between worthwhile bets and flying too close to the sun. The biggest mistake investors can make is chasing past performance, Sotiroff said. “You see a certain theme or sector ETF that does really well over the trailing year [and] the money piles in, but by that point, all the expectations are already baked in,” he said. “I suspect there’s some of that going on now.”
This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive exclusive news and analysis of the rapidly evolving ETF landscape, built for advisors and capital allocators, subscribe to our free ETF Upside newsletter.