Artificial intelligence and semiconductor stocks tumbled on Jan. 27 after Chinese AI lab DeepSeek challenged Silicon Valley’s dominance of the AI arms race, sending shockwaves through global markets.
Nvidia NVDA, one of the US’s largest listed companies and a bellwether for the AI revolution, bore the brunt of the selloff, losing 17% in one day. As a result, funds and ETFs with an exposure to Nvidia took a hit on Monday.
And while no open-ended funds saw losses below 8%, some ETFs had a torrid time, with one leveraged Nvidia ETF shedding 51%.
Leveraged Nvidia ETFs Suffer Extreme Losses Amid DeepSeek Shock
Among all ETFs available for sale to UK investors, the biggest losses were seen by ETFs that uses derivatives to provide leveraged exposure to a stock or a sector, with returns ranging from -19% to -51%. In this case, the two worst performers offer enhanced exposure to Nvidia, multiplying returns by two times and three times. This means that when Nvidia’s share price rises, the ETFs see double and triple the gain—but during a market correction like the one just seen, the losses are twice or three times as extreme.
Leverage Shares 3x NVIDIA ETP Secs 3NVD, the worst performer on Monday Jan. 27, fell 51.18%, tripling the 17% one-day Nvidia loss. The ETF is still up 450.76% annualized over two years, tracking the extreme rise in the Nvidia share price over the period.
Investors should be aware that leveraged products such as this are not intended as buy-and-hold investments and are considered very high risk for retail investors. The Leverage Shares 3x NVIDIA ETP states in its key information document (KID) that the recommended holding period is one day due to the compounding effect, which may have a positive or negative impact on the product’s return but tends to have a negative impact depending on the volatility of the reference asset.
Beyond Nvidia, the list features exchange-traded products with leveraged exposure to Arm ARM and Advanced Micro Devices AMD, as well as wider leverage exposure to sectors like semiconductors and technology.
Crypto ETFs Also Struggled
Two cryptocurrency-related products also made the list with Leverage Shares 3x Long Coinbase (COIN) ETP Securities 3CON and GraniteShares 3x Long Coinbase Daily ETP 3CLO. Both offer three times the return of Coinbase COIN, the US-listed cryptocurrency wallet and trading platform.
Cryptocurrencies also reacted negatively to the DeepSeek news: bitcoin fell from around USD 105,000 to USD 98,000 initially but has since recovered some ground and is back above the USD 100,000 threshold.
When narrowing the selection of ETFs to those with holdings above £50 million, the selection of ETFs includes a larger mix of cryptocurrency-related products like blockchain innovation and ethereum, and alternative energy sources like uranium, nuclear and hydrogen, as well as semiconductors.
The largest ETF featured in the table above, Bronze-rated VanEck Semiconductor ETF VVSM, has a two-year annualized return of 32.93%. On Jan. 27, the ETF fell 8.68%. Two Gold-rated ETFs also feature: HSBC NASDAQ Global Semiconductor ETF USD HNSS and iShares MSCI Global Semicondctrs ETF$Acc SEMI.
Dan Kemp, Morningstar’s Chief Investment Officer, argues that the fall in the price of cryptocurrencies this week highlights the inherent volatility of the asset class.
“As cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value, their price is not anchored to a stream of future cashflows as with traditional assets but is instead a pure reflection of market sentiment. We should therefore expect wide swings in the price of these tokens.
“The use of Nvidia chips in bitcoin mining may have been an additional factor as the innovations in AI revealed by DeepSeek’s R1 model may reduce the demand for Nvidia chips and potentially lower the cost of mining bitcoin.”
Moving to open-ended funds, the fund with the biggest one-day loss on Jan. 27 was Polar Capital Smart Energy. The £186m fund, which has a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver, lost 8.42% in just one day. Some of the fall can be attributed to its 4.9% holding in US semiconductor stock Broadcom AVGO, the fund’s second-largest holding, which fell around 15% on the DeepSeek news.
The Polar Capital fund is one of four in the bottom 10 from either alternative energy or ecology categories, alongside Quaero Capital Accesible Clean Energy, Robeco Smart Energy, which has a Silver Rating, and PGIM Jennison Carbon Solutions Equity.
Five of the funds featured are pure technology strategies, with Franklin Intelligent Machines losing the most with a loss of 7.85%. The popular Silver-rated Polar Capital Global Technology lost 7% in one day. Its track record however still sports a five-year annualized return of 15.52%.
The author or authors do own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar's editorial policies.