A 'Market Wizard' Is Running One of the Worst ETFs of 2026

A 'Market Wizard' Is Running One of the Worst ETFs of 2026 Sumit Roy Wed, August 5, 2026 at 1:59 AM GMT+2 2 min read DAMD QQQ WZRD AMD Decrease The Opportunistic Trader ETF (WZRD) has lost about 96% of its value in 2026, the steepest decline of any US-listed fund this year. What's notable is that WZRD isn't your typical leveraged or inverse product. Everything else near the bottom is a 2x or 3x fund tied to a single stock or index, the kind of product that's notorious for bleeding value over time as the daily reset and volatility drag chip away at returns.

For instance, the Defiance Daily Target 2X Short AMD ETF (DAMD) , the second-worst-performing fund this year, down nearly 94%, is a 2x inverse bet against AMD. In a year in which that stock has surged, that loss came from the ETF doing exactly what it's built to do. WZRD, in contrast, has a much more discretionary strategy, one that has clearly gone badly wrong this year.

The Strategy WZRD is managed by Larry Benedict, who was profiled in Jack Schwager's best-selling book Market Wizards: Interviews With Top Traders. According to his bio on the fund's website, he ran the proprietary trading desk at Spear, Leeds & Kellogg and founded Banyan Equity Management. He now publishes The Opportunistic Trader newsletter and runs the WZRD ETF, which is described as an actively managed ETF that focuses on large-cap US stocks combined with active options investing.

But based on the performance of the fund, the options side seems to be where the real focus has been, and to disastrous results. On Tuesday alone, the fund lost a quarter of its value even as the S&P 500 surged 2%.   The issuer's website listed options on the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) that expire in less than a week among its top holdings.

Wiped Out Anyone who invested in the ETF has essentially been wiped out. Shortly after launch, the fund had as much as $23 million in assets. That's now closer to $500,000.

Despite Benedict's pedigree, he seemed to be running the kind of strategy you'd expect from YOLO traders on Reddit, just packaged inside an ETF.   It's a reminder that neither a marquee name nor the ETF wrapper makes a risky strategy safe. Permalink | © Copyright 2026 etf.

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