Anyone having trouble buying bear ETFs?

Trading and Markets
1

I just tried to buy a couple of bear ETFs through Fidelity. The first one, Direxion Daily Russia Bear 3X Shares (RUSS) returns a “symbol not found” error whereas I just traded it a few weeks ago. It still shows up on Yahoo Finance and web searches say nothing about it having been closed.

The second one is DB Crude Oil Double Short ETN (DTO), Fidelity recognizes the symbol but says I cannot trade it online, I have to call a broker.

Remember a few months ago when I posted about the SEC limiting access to leveraged funds? Looks like brokers may have decided on their own to do so.

It reminds me of the GFC when they banned shorting on financial stocks. Can’t let the little guy take any of this money kind of thing.

Is anyone having this problem at other brokers?

2

Bad news. I spoke with Fidelity, Direxion has closed 8 funds “due to lack of interest,” including RUSS. Bear funds. Funds I recently traded. Funds that would make us money now.

DTO is not officially closed but is untradeable as they have decided not to issue any new shares. Fidelity puts what the representative called an “ETP Halt” on such funds.

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3

Here is a Barron’s article on what happens when an ETP stops issuing shares. It’s from 2016 but still applies:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/share-creations-halted-in-two-commodity-tracking-etfs-1458583144