TQQQ max drawdown: 99.97%
ProShares UltraPro QQQ (3x). From its 2000-03-31 peak, TQQQ fell 99.97% to the 2009-02-28 trough and has not yet made a new high. Computed from 678 months of history starting 1970-01-31, including extended pre-ETF data where available.
3x daily Nasdaq 100. The simulated dot-com path loses essentially everything; 2022 alone was about minus 80 percent.
TQQQ drawdown statistics
2000-03-31 peak to 2009-02-28 trough.
Still below the prior peak.
Share of all months spent below a prior high.
Rolling year ending 2001-09-30.
For context, SPY (the S&P 500 baseline) had a maximum drawdown of 50.8% over the same kind of monthly-close analysis.
The biggest TQQQ drawdowns on record
| Depth | Peak | Trough | Recovered | Peak to trough | Total underwater |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -99.97% | 2000-03-31 | 2009-02-28 | not yet | 107 mo | 26.3 years |
| -99.5% | 1970-04-30 | 1974-09-30 | 1998-12-31 | 53 mo | 28.7 years |
| -29.6% | 1999-01-31 | 1999-02-28 | 1999-06-30 | 1 mo | 5 months |
| -18.8% | 1999-12-31 | 2000-01-31 | 2000-02-29 | 1 mo | 2 months |
| -7.8% | 1999-06-30 | 1999-07-31 | 1999-08-31 | 1 mo | 2 months |
Methodology: monthly closing prices, peak-to-trough on total return where available. History extends before the ETF's launch via documented proxy chains (index funds, indices, and academic series), the same data that powers BestFolio's strategy backtests. Educational information, not investment advice.
Drawdowns are the reason tactical strategies exist
Buy-and-hold TQQQ means living through every number on this page. BestFolio tracks 46+ published TAA strategies whose whole job is cutting these drawdowns, with out-of-sample track records.