What Is AGQ? ProShares Ultra Silver

AGQ is the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF, launched in December 2008. It is a leveraged exchange-traded fund that seeks to return two times (2x) the daily performance of silver. It is designed as a short-term trading instrument, not a long-term way to own silver, because its leverage resets every trading day.

AGQ, listed on NYSE Arca. The full name is ProShares Ultra Silver, issued by ProShares, one of the largest providers of leveraged and inverse ETFs. 'Ultra' is ProShares' branding for its 2x daily leveraged funds.

No. AGQ does not hold silver bullion. It obtains its 2x exposure through financial derivatives, primarily total return swaps and futures contracts referencing silver, backed by cash and short-term instruments. If you want direct physical silver exposure, an unleveraged fund like SLV or SIVR holds bullion instead.

AGQ targets twice silver's return for a single trading day. If silver rises 2% today, AGQ aims for roughly 4% today. But the fund rebalances to that 2x target at the end of every day, so over multiple days the returns compound off a shifting base. The result over a week, month, or year is almost never exactly two times silver's cumulative move.

Volatility decay is the erosion of a leveraged fund's value in choppy, back-and-forth markets caused by daily compounding. If silver falls 10% then rises 10%, it does not return to where it started, and a 2x fund does even worse because each day's move is amplified. The more volatile and directionless the market, the more a daily-reset fund like AGQ can lose relative to a simple 2x of silver's start-to-end change.

AGQ is not designed for long-term holding. ProShares itself states that Ultra funds are intended for short-term use and should be monitored daily. Over long periods the daily reset and volatility decay can cause returns to diverge dramatically from twice silver's performance. Walnut is not an investment adviser, but for a buy-and-hold silver position, an unleveraged bullion fund is the more conventional choice.

1.29% per year, which is high relative to plain-vanilla commodity ETFs. On a $10,000 position that is about $129 per year, and it is deducted from the fund's NAV. The elevated fee reflects the cost of running a daily-rebalanced leveraged strategy using swaps and futures.

AGQ's stated yield is 0.00%. Leveraged commodity funds like this generally do not pay regular dividends because they hold derivatives and cash rather than dividend-paying securities. Any distributions would be occasional and tied to fund accounting rather than a recurring income stream.

AGQ trades like a stock during US market hours through any broker, including Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, and Public. Because it is a short-term trading vehicle, many traders set price alerts and monitor it intraday rather than holding it passively. Some brokers require an acknowledgment of the risks of leveraged products before trading them.

Approximately $1.25 billion as of July 2026. Assets in leveraged commodity funds can fluctuate quickly as traders move in and out and as the underlying commodity swings, so AUM is more variable than for a typical index ETF.

SLV (iShares Silver Trust) holds physical silver bullion and seeks to track silver's price roughly one-for-one, making it suitable for long-term exposure. AGQ seeks 2x silver's daily move using derivatives and resets daily, making it a short-term trading tool. SLV is the buy-and-hold vehicle; AGQ is the leveraged trade.

A single day's move cannot wipe out the fund because leverage is capped at 2x daily, but sustained adverse moves combined with volatility decay can drive the share price down severely over time. ProShares periodically reverse-splits the fund to keep the share price in a workable range after large declines, which is a hallmark of leveraged products in prolonged drawdowns.

Leveraged funds post cash and cash-equivalent collateral to support their swap and futures positions. Holding an instrument like the ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF is a way to earn a return on that collateral while the derivatives provide the 2x silver exposure. The money market position is not the source of the fund's silver return.

AGQ is built for experienced, active traders who want to express a short-term bullish view on silver with amplified exposure and who understand daily-reset mechanics and volatility decay. It is generally not appropriate for long-term investors or anyone who cannot monitor the position closely. Walnut is not an investment adviser; whether a leveraged product fits depends on your risk tolerance and trading horizon.

Put a few fields side by side: the expense ratio (fees compound over decades), the index or strategy it tracks, the top holdings and how much they overlap with what you already own, the dividend yield, and the AUM, liquidity, and bid-ask spread that affect trading costs. For index funds, tracking error (how closely it follows its index) and tax efficiency matter too. AGQ's figures are above; the full method is in Walnut's guide on how to compare ETFs.