In this episode, Douglas Yones, Head of Exchange Traded Products at the New York Stock Exchange, is joined by Laura Morrison, Chief Revenue Officer at Direxion, as she discusses Direxion’s ETF franchise, her journey through the ETF industry, the community of Women in ETFs, and her love of cars!

Douglas and Laura discuss:

• Direxion’s unique product offering and their newest ETF launch
• The start of Laura’s career on the NYSE Floor 
• The global network of Women in ETFs

TRANSCRIPT:

Douglas Yones:

Hello and welcome to ETF Central The Podcast where we bring the latest and greatest ETF industry perspectives directly to you through in-depth conversations with key thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm your host, Douglas Yones, the Head of Exchange Traded Products at the New York Stock Exchange, the Home of ETFs.

Now, today I am joined by Laura Morrison, Chief Revenue Officer at Direxion. As CRO, Laura oversees the sales, the marketing and product development teams at Direxion with a focus on expanding the firm's strategy, their brand reputation, and of course market position in the industry.

Now, Laura joined Direxion in 2022, and together with the team, she works to deliver innovative trading and investment products with an emphasis on client engagement and education. We'll get into some of that today. Of course, prior to joining Direxion, Laura spent years overseeing exchange listing programs, exchange businesses, including strategy and development for ETF issuers, market quality exchange and incentive programs, which is frankly how we met one another many years ago. And by the way, she began her career working at a specialist firm right here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. And importantly, she serves as a board member of the US Women in ETFs, as well as several ICI and SIFMA committees. You're present throughout the entire industry. Laura, thank you so much for being here.

Laura Morrison:

Doug, I really appreciate your inviting me on your podcast. This is fun.

Douglas Yones:

It is fun, especially given our background. But I want to start with Direxion. Before we get a little into the past, let's talk about the present. So at Direxion, your role, Chief Revenue Officer, I feel like it's too short of a name for all the work you do. Could you tell us a little bit about some of the things you and your team focus on?

Laura Morrison:

Thanks. Well, you recapped it well, Doug, from the perspective of running sales, marketing and product, bringing those divisions together, aligning in all that we look to accomplish. I am super proud having been at Direxion for a year while the markets have helped, but when I joined, we were at 19 billion, and today we're at 31 billion. So that's a nice uptick in a year, that's for sure.

Douglas Yones:

That's fantastic. We'll point to you, right? That's all the Laura Morrison effect. Maybe that could be the new phrase.

Laura Morrison:

There is a lot of emphasis on asset gathering. There's no doubt about that. And making sure people use our products in the way that they're meant to be used as trading vehicles. But I'm also excited about the fact that we're sitting here today and our industry globally is at all-time highs once again. So this is historical, in my opinion.

Douglas Yones:

It is It is.

Laura Morrison:

And like I said, really fun and exciting to be sitting with you here today.

Douglas Yones:

It is fun and exciting, and I think you're pointing to this sort of trend that you and I, we've been in this industry for a while, but for those that are maybe coming in, they don't realize how resilient ETFs have been, regardless of market condition. In fact, many of the worst market conditions have driven the best growth for ETFs and Direxion are clearly in the same boat.

Laura Morrison:

That's true. That's true. We have tools regardless of the Direxion that the market's headed, to be honest.

Douglas Yones:

Well played. Well played.

Laura Morrison:

Thank you. But yeah, the majority of our products are trading vehicles. We have 80 products, 75 of them are leveraged and inverse, and five of them are buy and hold products. But those leveraged and inverse products are important tools for traders, and they're used throughout the world. There are so many, particularly in Korea, in Japan, there's so many traders throughout the world that come to our US markets to trade our products because of the uniqueness of them and the edge and the liquidity that we offer.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I think a lot about how when people step into the ETF industry and holistically at the top, they sort of say, "Oh, well, ETFs are good for all these different things." One of the things that I feel like in the first decade or two decades of ETFs that always came up was, well, they're unbelievable hedge vehicles. And I think Direxion, you've kind of leaned into that space in a lot of ways where you provide vehicles for people to offset exposures or lever exposures, I guess. But I feel like that doesn't come up enough in conversations, but maybe it does in your world.

Laura Morrison:

It sure does. Yes.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. So let's go back in time. You and I have known each other for a very long time. You ran the Exchange business here when I was at Vanguard and I was launching ETFs, and I would knock on the door of the New York Stock Exchange, "Please let me in. I want to talk." I was coming to see your smiling face. Take us through that progression. How did you end up at a specialist firm on the floor of the Exchange? Is that, you were in college, and so you said, "I want to be on the floor."

Laura Morrison:

Basically, yes, that's what it was. I was in college in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I took an internship, and in that internship it was helping to invest for the foundation and endowment program. And through that experience, I was working with our Merrill Lynch broker and then interned there, basically to be able to trade and learn about that aspect of the business. And I was just intrigued by how quickly the orders took place as if they knew the order was coming. When it went off to New York and then came back, this was many, many years ago, the turnaround time, there was six seconds.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, now we're measuring in microseconds. I'll let people Google that.

Laura Morrison:

Precisely, precisely. So while I'm dating myself a bit, I was so intrigued by micro market mechanics, particularly in the equity space, that when my husband and I moved here literally 30 years ago, same year SPY was launched on the American Stock Exchange, I entered onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. By way of introduction, a lead floor broker, Stewy Greenberg, brought me around to various specialist firms. I had a stack of resumes and a couple of offers shortly thereafter, and I just knew this is what I wanted to do. I was so passionate about what that opportunity could afford me and where I could go from there.

Douglas Yones:

So you see the dynamics of the floor, you see the action, you're joined in there. Then what? Where did ETF sort of step into your path where you said, "Oh, well, that's interesting."

Laura Morrison:

Well, I was intrigued with what was happening at the American Stock Exchange, which is literally just across the way, only a block away over the graveyard, the Trinity graveyard, because SPY was launching, and I was fascinated by that because it was to correct market mechanics that didn't work well, of course, with program trading. And having followed that throughout my career here, I spent a good amount of time on the corporate equity side of the business, and then I also worked with the member firm relationship management team. So I had both the listed perspective and I also had the trading perspective, both clients of the Exchange coming together. When the NYSE had acquired Archipelago, we were building the NYSE Arca platform to really, really expand on the NYSE's listings business, specifically for ETFs.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, and so you're here at the Exchange. I mean, I remember coming in and talking to you, oh my gosh, this would've been like 1999, 2000, because we launched our first ETF in 2001. Back then, did you think it would be this big? I mean, did you think it would turn into this sort of monstrous ETF industry? It was never called an industry.

Laura Morrison:

No, it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. There were many people in the mutual fund business that were rolling their eyes our way and said, "Yeah, you're never going to make inroads in the way that we've accomplished and built assets out." But sure enough-

Douglas Yones:

Here we are, 30 years in, probably bigger than most of us expected. I know I didn't ever think it would be this big. I didn't think we'd ever switch spaces, by the way. Thank you for creating the industry that you've created here at the New York Stock Exchange. You personally were really a part of, I don't know what to call it, other than the first, right? So the first ETFs launching at the New York Stock Exchange. Of course, in the beginning they were all indexed. Then you were here for the first active ETFs, the first bond ETFs, first futures ETF, first commodities. And then Direxion, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, one of the first 3Xs. Is that correct?

Laura Morrison:

Triple levered. That's right.

Douglas Yones:

Triple levered. Did it feel like you were breaking ground every single time? What was going on around you?

Laura Morrison:

Well, first of all, there was a significant amount of work that went into all the new asset classes that we were going to list because of the requirements to engage the staff of the SEC. But going back, I mean, actually did a little bit of work on this question just because some of it predates me. So I moved into the ETF world here at the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. The first commodity-based exchange-traded product, of course, GLD launched by State Street in 2004. Again, breaking ground. The first multi future ETP was the Deutsche Bank Commodity Index Trading, DBC. It offered exposure to 14 of the most heavily-traded physical commodities in the world. And then shortly thereafter, USO, United States Oil Fund launched in April 2006.

So that was all before I had joined, but I'd heard a lot about it, and it was groundbreaking. It really was. While I was here in March of 2008, it was the first actively managed exchange-traded fund, if you remember the Bear Stearns YYY or Triple-Y, it was a current yield fund. So the first actively managed ETF that turned into be quite a large, I mean, there's 400 billion in actively managed ETFs right now, so that too is an impressive growth story.

But to your point, Direxion launched the first triple leveraged ETFs under what we refer to as generic listing standards. And it was actually perfectly timed considering we were literally going right into the financial crisis at that moment in time.

Douglas Yones:

No one could have predicted that, or if they could have, they probably made a lot of money and have disappeared.

Laura Morrison:

Yeah. Actually to that point, so I've always lived in Battery Park City, walking to work here, I was walking along Rector Street on the way to the Exchange, and all of a sudden, one of my passions is supercars, and I heard this loud Ferrari come up behind me, and before I had a chance to see who was driving that vehicle, which I still don't know to this day, it speeds past me with the license plate, FAS. I'm cracking up saying, "Here we are, sign of the times."

Douglas Yones:

Somebody bought a Ferrari because of their investment, I suppose.

Laura Morrison:

Because of their use of the product. Exactly. Exactly.

Douglas Yones:

By the way, probably one of the only people in the world of ETFs that could tell the sound of a Ferrari, one of two I know anyway, coming up from behind them and not just that, "Hey, I've got a very large vehicle engine coming up behind me." If you don't know Laura, Laura is into vehicles. You've been a member of a car association here in New York City. I always ask you this question, but I'll ask for the audience. Do you have a favorite vehicle that you have taken out from the car club and given a spin?

Laura Morrison:

Oh my goodness. Well, we have supercars, we have classic cars. The name of it is the Classic Car Club, and in both categories, my favorite classic car has been the '69 Bronco, beautiful orange. I mean, it sounds awesome, it looks awesome, turns heads, it's a manual. Few manuals around anymore. In fact, a lot of the driving members don't drive it because they can't drive manual. So that one tends to always be available. But as it relates to the supercars, my favorite is the McLaren, the 600LT, the 600 Longtail. It's just a wonderfully smooth, well-balanced vehicle, and is also a head turner, as you might imagine.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, for sure. And Laura and I share a love of manual stick shift vehicles. Yeah, I know we probably are becoming a dying breed on that and we're becoming dinosaurs, but there's nothing like a stick shift vehicle. So if you are interested in supercars, please come see Laura. She's always been an advocate of the Car Club, or maybe you'll just see her in a head-turning vehicle, a Ferrari coming up behind you as you walk down Wall Street.

Laura, let's go back to ETFs for a moment. You've always sort of, in my mind, been in the middle of it. Was there an aha moment ever for you where you just said, "You know what? I need to just build my career around ETFs."

Laura Morrison:

So obviously from the first launch back 30 years ago when I was just so young on the trading floor trying to understand how markets work, I was always intrigued, as I'd mentioned earlier, but truly, once NYSE had acquired Archipelago, I knew that what we were building was pretty cool. It was an offering that could compete and obviously we were competing with the American Stock Exchange, but ultimately after we acquired Archipelago, we acquired Euronext. So we had the exposure to Europe, to the Paris Bors, the Amsterdam Bors, Lisbon, Brussels. So we were expanding in so many different ways. And then of course, the acquisition of the American Stock Exchange. So bringing together all of the products, I was responsible for the transfer of well over 600 products from the American Stock Exchange to NYSE Arca, and very proud of that flawless experience that we had offered all of our issuers, all of our market makers, and most importantly, the investors in these products.

Douglas Yones:

And you'd always been very successful at building teams, bringing really great, smart people together. You inspire a lot of people, including me, to want to build a team where people have a smile on their face every day. If you have not spent time with Laura, she must wake up happier than anyone else I know and go to bed happier. It doesn't matter when you catch her or what kind of crisis you're in, you're always calm and smiling. And so it just sort of puts everyone in a better mood.

Laura Morrison:

Thank you.

Douglas Yones:

And so I drive a lot of that in what I try and do every day that I borrow from you, if you will. For those that are listening in, do you have advice? I think about the young people reach out and they say, "Hey, I want to do that too. I want to build a career like Laura's done." You've been successful across a lot of different organizations. You've gone from the Exchange, now you're at the buy side. Are there pieces of advice that either you think about or people have given you where you say, "Hey, here's kind of the guidance that I would give to anyone listening in."

Laura Morrison:

It is absolutely not too late to hitch your wagon to this ETF growth engine. It is not, either in the US or anywhere in the world. And the network is phenomenal. It's a relatively small network of those of us who have the passion for this industry that can help introduce you and help bring you in, help teach you, help you understand about where in this ecosystem you may enjoy working the most.

Douglas Yones:

Maybe we'll skip over to this because I brought it up in your bio, but one of those organizations is Women in ETFs. And it feels like the original founders did such an amazing job that it's almost like Women in ETFs is starting to, in its own right and in a good way, have a life of its own beyond even just singular members. It seems like people are now branching off. I know New York Stock Exchange, we've tried to be a big part of it and support every way we can. What does that organization mean? You're on the board there. What are the goals and what are the ways that any of us listening in, how should we be helping it thrive?

Laura Morrison:

Well, first of all, Doug, thank you for the support you've given Women in ETFs and thank the New York Stock Exchange and ICE for also doing that. It's greatly appreciated. We're so proud of our partners and our sponsors. And like you'd mentioned, the growth. We have over 8,500 members now all around the globe. And next year we'll be celebrating our 10th anniversary. And really, I would love to boast about 10,000 members by our 10th year anniversary. That would be phenomenal.

What we do though is our network is, of course, members represented both male and female. About 10% of our members are male. And we're bold and fearless in our mission to develop and sponsor talent, recognize and honor the achievements, and just basically invest in the ETF community. So in short, we connect, we support and we inspire.

What I love about it the most is truly, if you're looking to do business in Australia, for example, there's a person you can connect with through our community. So it's always easier to approach an opportunity with a soft intro. That's what Women in ETFs is all about. It's that door that opens because you want to walk through it. That's what helped me the most, is I've expanded the global network that I enjoy. That in itself is one of the main reasons why I suggest you consider becoming a member. Or if you're a member and haven't really taken advantage of what Women in ETFs offers, use that route.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, to me, in addition to this global networking, global connection that you can really have, the mentoring capabilities up, down and sideways as a result are just unbelievable. And you see it happen. If you haven't attended an event, join, come to an event, you can't not start engaging and having chats with people, and it just opens up all these conversations and then you end up following up with people from those events and having conversations about businesses or, "Hey, I'm having this problem at work," or, "I'm thinking about this," or, "I'm considering applying for a job." And you will be shocked at how much you are both helping other people, but more importantly, helping your own business thrive and yourself thrive and problems you personally face. You end up reaching out to people and saying, "Have you ever dealt with this? Because you're kind of outside of my network, so I can ask you these questions that I maybe wouldn't ask inside my network."

Laura Morrison:

Well said, that's exactly it.

Douglas Yones:

So please, Women in ETFs, either reach out to me, Laura, go to their website, join because we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary. We want you to be a part of that 10,000-person membership that we're going to reach. Let's go back to Direxion now. You've got a unique lineup of exchange-traded products, whether that word is the best summary word, probably not. We'll hit the thesaurus. But could you tell us a little bit about the lineup and how you think day to day about the business?

Laura Morrison:

Sure. So as I'd mentioned, by far, the majority of our products are in fact leveraged and inverse. And for the listeners who are new to Direxion, basically our daily ETFs are leveraged funds that provide powerful leverage and the ability for investors to navigate changing markets, like I'd mentioned earlier. Whatever Direxion the market's going, if you have an opinion on that particular sector or the entire S&P 500* or even a single stock, you can utilize our products as a trading tool that basically are designed to seek daily investment results, before of course fees and expenses, up to 300%. 

But what we're launching now, because of what the SEC will allow us include funds up until 2X and frankly, there's no guarantee that the funds will achieve their investment objectives. But it's really important to understand how to use our products. For example, if you're utilizing our products, they have the word daily in them for a reason, and I bring this up because you don't necessarily have to trade the product every day, but you need to make a decision whether or not to trade it every day. So all of that said, there's a lot of really good information that's available, educational information that's available on our website. So please go that route, reach out to me directly, reach out to our sales team, and we'll be happy to walk you through this.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, I agree. Direxion's website, you've got an unbelievable amount of information, guidance, education. You talk a lot about what that daily reset means because, as you said, even no trade is a decision. And with a daily reset, if you go to Direxion's website, you'll see there's a lot of education about how you need to make decisions every day. Direxion spelled D-I-R-E-X-I-O-N. So Direxion is very important when you go to their website. Laura, we're dealing with a very interesting market, S&P's hitting all-time highs as we're recording this, which I can't believe because if we go back a couple of months, conversations were totally different. What are you working on now? What is the team working on now?

Laura Morrison:

Well, we'd like to diversify our lineup, but what we're known for and what we do well is the leverage and inverse space. So thank you for sending out the new ETP notification this morning. We're looking forward to launching on the New York Stock Exchange with you, Doug. Our newest product, the Direxion HCM Tactical Enhanced US ETF, the symbol is HCMT. It's an actively managed product, which is unique for us. And essentially it provides enhanced returns across multiple market cycles correlated to the US equity markets.

We have a subadvisor, Howard Capital, and they've run this particular offering in other packages, if you will, but we feel as if this model fits well within an ETF. So we've worked closely with them to build it into the ETF where basically the fund's assets are allocated to US equity securities or in cash during market turndowns. 

And just a quick shout out to GTS, they'll be our lead market maker, another important partner of ours who also knows Howard Capital very well. So with the three of us together, I'm thinking this is a pretty powerful offering.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, it's a good combination. And of course, Reggie Brown, a previous podcast guest, if you missed his podcast, please go to etfcentral.com or go to anywhere you capture your podcast and look up ETF Central, the podcast. Laura, I mean, your team at Direxion is wonderful, everyone's so great, unbelievable depths of knowledge. You're now teaming up with Vance and his team at Howard Capital. They're not new to the ETF industry or investing. I mean, do you just get in a room between the two groups of people and just immediately all the ideas start flowing? What happens in that space?

Laura Morrison:

I know. Well, I mean, there was some conversations and dinners held up ahead of this, but really when we started to get serious about it, it was literally September of last year and we sat down and started basically white boarding this out, trying to decide what made sense for both parties and how this product would best work fitting within the 6c-11 requirements of the rules for listing. So it's been a fun experience. I've learned a lot sitting on this side now of the asset management space on how best to construct this partnership where it becomes a win-win.

Douglas Yones:

And spend some time... This broadcast will go post launch, so the ticker symbol, HCMT, I'm sure you can find it on either Howard Capital's website, on Direxion's website, or of course etfcentral.com. You could type in Howard Capital, you could type in HCMT, you'll see the whole lineup of ETFs and you can learn a little bit about it. If you don't know much about Vance, spend some time there. He's a very unique and wonderful individual building an entire museum. And I'll leave it at that. Go spend some time Googling. You will not be disappointed there. Laura, I look at your career, your history. You've touched so many different ETFs. Could you dig into the barrel, if you will, and take out, do you have a favorite ETF that you've helped launch over your career?

Laura Morrison:

Well, I've thought about this question quite a bit. There are so many on the list. As you're building this new industry and new entrants come in, it continues to be a very cool experience. But I have to say, one of the most challenging efforts and one of the most rewarding efforts happened to be with PIMCO back in the day. That was in 2012. So PIMCO came to us, wanted to be the first actively managed issuer of fixed income products. And we had a whole lineup of all the variations of different ETFs that they wanted to launch, and then we bucketed them into, okay, not so difficult to get through the SEC, because of course there weren't generic listing standards, medium difficulty and really tough difficulty.

So we bucketed all the different products and we had them on separate tracks in terms of engagement with the staff. And after what felt like years, but maybe it was two years, maybe it was one year, we were able to obtain approval for that, quote, unquote, "easier" to accomplish the approval. And we were so excited to be doing business with PIMCO for the first time. We offered to Bill Gross who was running the show then, Chief Investment Officer, to come to ring the bell here at the New York Stock Exchange. And last minute he just said, "I can't. I need to be on the desk. This is such an important launch. I absolutely need to be on the desk here in California." So I said, "Fine, we'll bring the bell to you."

So we were launching the bond ETF under the symbol TRXT. And so we have everything all set up. I think they were on the fifth floor or the fourth floor of the headquarters building that they were in. We snaked up all the cables, we attached everything so that we could broadcast live from their trading floor. And there's always a few glitches coming from that here and there, but we're about to ring the bell and everything's going as smoothly as possible. Their team in New York was on the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. I was hosting the bell out at the offices in Southern California. And Bill Gross leaned over to me and said, "How come we don't have the symbol BOND?" And I said, "Mr. Gross, I will get back to you on that." We were able to secure that symbol. But it was kind of cool because there's him, there's his wife, there's Natalie Zerandick, there's Don Suskind, there's Paul Kim, all these amazing people who are still in the industry today. And this celebration was just a moment in time that I'll never forget.

Douglas Yones:

And eventually they do secure B-O-N-D, and BOND's still making headlines, by the way, and still being first, because BOND was the very first ETF that moved to the NYSE floor November of last year as ETFs are starting to list back onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, not just electronically on Arca. So that team has continued to be the first and continued to break new ground.

Laura Morrison:

That's right. And congratulations on bringing ETFs back to the trading floor.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah, it's exciting times.

Laura Morrison:

That is exciting. It's a different market structure, and it certainly works for a number of ETFs. It makes sense. Especially BOND being the product that headlined that opportunity.

Douglas Yones:

The floor is for us ETF nerdlers, as we like to call ourselves, maybe for another conversation, for another podcast, where we could talk about deep market structure. But the floor is definitely a unique model, one of the last floors with humans out there and what they provide to the market in terms of liquidity and running auctions is like none other. And so it's exciting to be able to offer that back to ETFs, basically starting where it all started on the American Stock Exchange when you had a specialist, and a lot of our guests came off of that specialist model.

Laura Morrison:

That's right.

Douglas Yones:

Laura, before we go, I know we're getting close to the end of time, do you have certain ways for anyone out there, they're maybe learning about Direxion for the first time, or maybe they want to learn more about what it means to have a daily reset or leveraged or inverse? How should advisors, should investors be thinking about Direxion? How should they engage with you and your team?

Laura Morrison:

Thanks, Doug. And you actually mentioned it earlier. Literally the best route to go is to our website, Direxion, and that's with an X instead of a C-T. But direxion.com. There's a tremendous amount of information that's available as well as a way to contact us and speak with myself and speak with our sales team. So we welcome that, please.

Douglas Yones:

And of course, follow Direxion and the team on all the different social media channels. They continue to produce quite a bit of content, very educational in nature.

That is a wrap on this edition of ETF Central, the podcast. As a reminder, you can find this episode as well as many other episodes and spend time utilizing that very free ETF screener on the website, etfcentral.com. We've talked about that a number of times. It's all available at etfcentral.com. Thank you, Laura, for being here to share your insights. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes featuring thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm your host, Douglas Yones, Head of Exchange Traded Funds at the New York Stock Exchange, the home of ETFs.

*The “S&P 500 Index" is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("SPDJI"), and has been licensed for use by Rafferty Asset Management, LLC ("Rafferty"). Standard & Poor’s® and S&P® are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC ("S&P"); Dow Jones® is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC ("Dow Jones"); and these trademarks have been licensed for use by SPDJI and sublicensed for certain purposes by Rafferty. Rafferty’s ETFs are not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by SPDJI, Dow Jones, S&P, their respective affiliates and none of such parties make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in such product(s) nor do they have any liability for any errors, omissions, or interruptions of the S&P 500® Index.

Disclosure: 

An investor should carefully consider the Fund’s investment objective, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. The Fund’s prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and other information about the Direxion Shares. To obtain the Fund’s prospectus and summary prospectus call 866-476-7523 or visit our website at direxion.com. The Fund’s prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing.

Direxion Funds Risks - An investment in the Funds involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The Funds are non-diversified and include risks associated with concentration risk which results from the Funds’ investments in a particular industry or sector and can increase volatility over time. Active and frequent trading associated with a regular rebalance of a fund can cause the price to fluctuate, therefore impacting its performance compared to other investment vehicles. For other risks including correlation, compounding, market volatility and risks specific to an industry or sector, please read the prospectus.

Direxion Shares ETF Risks (HCMT) – An investment in the Fund involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The Fund is non-diversified and includes risks associated with the Fund concentrating its investments in a particular industry, sector, or geography which can increase volatility. The use of derivatives, such as swaps, is subject to market risks that may cause their price to fluctuate over time. Risks of the Fund include Effects of Compounding and Market Volatility Risk, Active Management Risk, Subadviser's Investment Model Risk, Leverage Risk, Derivatives Risk, Market Risk, Counterparty Risk, Other Investment Companies (including ETFs) Risk, Cash Transaction Risk, Tax Risk, and risks specific to the Fund's sector or industry allocations.  Please see the summary and full prospectuses for a more complete description of these and other risks of the Fund.

(HCMT) Investing in the Fund may be more volatile than investing in broadly diversified funds. The use of leverage by the Fund increases the risk to the Fund. Investors in the Fund should understand the risks associated with the use of leverage and understand the consequences of seeking leveraged investment results.

Direxion Shares ETF Risks (L/I and Single Stocks)– An investment in the ETFs involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The ETFs are non-diversified and include risks associated with concentration that results from an ETF’s investments in a particular industry, sector or company, which can increase volatility. The use of derivatives such as futures contracts and swaps are subject to market risks that may cause their price to fluctuate over time. The ETFs do not attempt to, and should not be expected to, provide returns which are a multiple of the return of their respective index or underlying security for periods other than a single day. For other risks including leverage, correlation, daily compounding, market volatility and risks specific to an industry, sector or company, please read the prospectus. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT DIREXION.COM, call us at 866-476-7523 OR EMAIL US AT INFO@DIREXIONSHARES.COM.

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Distributor: Foreside Fund Services, LLC.