30 Jun 2025
WILD: Leveraged Exposure to the Most Widely Traded Stocks
5 Stocks—Rotated Monthly—2x Leverage Reset Daily
Speculative energy has always been part of investing—but in today’s dynamic markets, it moves faster, hits harder, and spreads more widely than ever before.
Meme stocks, volatile tech names, and crypto-linked companies can dominate headlines and trading volume for weeks at a time—only to be replaced by the next wave of momentum increasingly fueled by individual traders. It appears the 2020s are on track to be one of the most volatile decades on record dating back to the 1950s, according to A Wealth of Common Sense blog. (1)
For tactical investors seeking to potentially harness that energy, we recently introduced VistaShares Animal Spirits Daily 2x Strategy ETF (WILD). Using a proprietary approach, the ETF offers 2x or 200% daily leveraged exposure to a dynamic portfolio of the five most widely traded stocks with strong investor sentiment and momentum. The result: a highly tactical vehicle designed to capitalize on short-term swings in some of the most closely watched parts of the market.
WILD “offers a more diversified approach to investing in high-beta securities, and we believe it is the next stage in the evolution of what a leveraged ETF can be,” explains Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares.
Why WILD Now?
WILD is designed to provide highly market-sensitive exposure in a similar way to how some institutional traders establish it. Although single-stock leveraged ETFs can be tools for individual traders, institutions rarely want to take on outsized single-stock risk when using leverage. Instead, they often use data-based approaches to identify baskets of popular, momentum-driven stocks to diversify their leveraged exposure in search of generating potential outperformance.
As mentioned, single-stock leveraged ETFs have become popular tools for expressing short-term market views. But as traders gravitate toward individual names like Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA), or MicroStrategy (MSTR), they face a new challenge: staying ahead of a constantly shifting sentiment cycle.
WILD is designed to keep pace with that cycle—offering exposure to where traders’ attention is most focused, without requiring investors to pick stocks or guess what’s next. WILD rotates monthly to capture changes in trading behavior, market tone, and crowd momentum.
It’s not about chasing hype. It’s about systematizing access to it.
What’s Inside WILD?
Each month, WILD’s model selects five stocks based on a combination of buying momentum and investor sentiment.
Specifically, WILD seeks exposure to the most relevant U.S. equities linked to single-stock leveraged products. Stocks are selected based on their market significance within this space, ranking and weighting them using a relevance score that factors in both assets under management and net fund flows. By focusing on stocks with the highest investor engagement, WILD seeks to capture those with the strongest traction in leveraged trading.
To be clear, WILD does not invest in single-stock leveraged ETFs. Instead, it uses those investment vehicles as data sources to identify where traders are concentrating their bets. By focusing on the stocks traders are most enthusiastic about, WILD seeks to follow the money.
The result is a concentrated portfolio designed to reflect the prevailing forces of market enthusiasm—what economist John Maynard Keynes famously called “animal spirits.”
WILD’s Current Company Exposure:
Source: VistaShares, based on the composition as of 5/13/2025.
Fund holdings are subject to change. https://www.vistashares.com/etf/wild/#holdings
These five names have one thing in common: they dominate attention. Whether it’s AI infrastructure, digital transformation, crypto exposure, or high-octane innovation, these stocks live at the intersection of volatility and visibility.
The Strategy Behind the Sentiment
WILD isn’t a meme stock fund. It’s not a momentum fund in the traditional sense, either. Instead, it’s a behavioral-finance-informed strategy that tracks how traders act—not just what they say.
Using proprietary inputs around trading volume, price action, and investor attention, WILD constructs a monthly target portfolio that reflects real-time shifts in what’s being traded—not just what’s being talked about. By delivering 2x daily leveraged exposure to that basket, WILD aims to magnify the short-term moves that often define the speculative heart of the market.
Of course, this cuts both ways. WILD is built for short-term trading, not long-term holding. It requires active monitoring and is best used by investors who understand the risks of daily compounding and leverage.
Who Is WILD For?
WILD may appeal to:
- Active traders looking for tactical exposure to high-momentum names
- Sentiment-driven investors who want to systematize behavioral strategies
- ETF users seeking an alternative to managing single-stock leveraged positions manually
It’s also a potential tool for those who understand that some of the biggest moves in markets come not from fundamentals—but from psychology: fear, greed, and flow.
Taming the Animal Spirits
Markets have always been moved by more than math and fundamentals. Narratives, psychology, and sentiment—these elements often shape the short-term far more than earnings reports or balance sheets. WILD recognizes that reality and offers a potential framework for acting on it.
By combining institutional processes with behavioral insight, WILD gives traders a front-row seat to the market’s most dynamic stories—along with a tool to trade them.
To learn more about WILD’s strategy, current holdings, and more, visit the WILD page.
(1) (Source: Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense, “The Most Volatile Decade,” June 22, 2025)
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the Fund, please call (844) 875-2288 or visit www.VistaShares.com. Read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.
Investments involve risk, including the loss of principal.
Animal SpiritsTM Strategy Risks. The Fund’s investment strategy of focusing on companies with strong investor interest carries significant risks. This approach may result in the Fund investing in overvalued securities, as heightened enthusiasm can inflate stock prices beyond their intrinsic value, leaving them vulnerable to sharp corrections. The strategy is influenced by herd mentality, which could lead the Fund to participate in speculative bubbles that may collapse suddenly. Additionally, the strategy often involves a short-term focus, with investments driven by fleeting trends or news cycles, increasing the likelihood of heightened volatility and unpredictability. The Fund may also invest in companies that lack fundamental financial support, relying more on market hype than on sustainable growth or profitability. There is a significant risk of timing errors, as the strategy requires precise entry and exit points to avoid losses. Finally, because the Fund’s strategy is based on a ranking process of companies with strong investor interest, the investment decisions may prove to be poor.
Index Strategy Risk. The Fund’s strategy is linked to an Index maintained by the Index Provider that exercises complete control over the Index. The Index Provider may delay or add a rebalance date, which may adversely impact the performance of the Fund and its correlation to the Index. In addition, there is no guarantee that the methodology used by the Index Provider to identify constituents for the Index will achieve its intended result or positive performance. Errors in Index data, Index computations or the construction of the Index in accordance with its methodology may occur from time to time and may not be identified and/or corrected for a period of time or at all, which may have an adverse impact on the Fund.
Derivatives Risk. Derivatives are financial instruments that derive value from the underlying reference asset or assets, such as stocks, bonds, or funds (including ETFs), interest rates or indexes. The Fund’s investments in derivatives may pose risks in addition to, and greater than, those associated with directly investing in securities or other ordinary investments, including risk related to the market, leverage, imperfect daily correlations with underlying investments or the Fund’s other portfolio holdings, higher price volatility, lack of availability, counterparty risk, liquidity, valuation and legal restrictions. The use of derivatives is a highly specialized activity that involves investment techniques and risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions. The use of derivatives may result in larger losses or smaller gains than directly investing in securities. When the Fund uses derivatives, there may be imperfect correlation between the share price of the Target Portfolio and the derivative, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective. Because derivatives often require only a limited initial investment, the use of derivatives may expose the Fund to losses in excess of those amounts initially invested.
New Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with no operating history. As a result, prospective investors do not have a track record or history on which to base their investment decisions. Newer Sub-Adviser Risk. VistaShares is a recently formed entity and has limited experience with managing an exchange-traded fund, which may limit the Sub-Adviser’s effectiveness. Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
U.S. Government and U.S. Agency Obligations Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities. U.S. Government obligations include securities issued or guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government, its agencies or instrumentalities, such as the U.S. Treasury. Payment of principal and interest on U.S. Government obligations may be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States or may be backed solely by the issuing or guaranteeing agency or instrumentality itself. In the latter case, the investor must look principally to the agency or instrumentality issuing or guaranteeing the obligation for ultimate repayment, which agency or instrumentality may be privately owned. There can be no assurance that the U.S. Government would provide financial support to its agencies or instrumentalities (including government-sponsored enterprises) where it is not obligated to do so.
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