Al, I hate all the leveraged ETFs - except for daytrading (for that, they're great). They are portfolio killers because of the way they rebalance every day - volatility destroys their value. The leveraged oil ones like UCO have an additional problem - every time they roll over a futures contract, they lose value (assuming oil is in normal contango). For example, WTIC oil bottomed in late December 08 around 35, now it's 70. You would think a double bull ETF would have gone up 4X, but UCO is essentially flat. Heaven forbid you get the direction wrong. Non-leveraged USO is better, but you still have the contract rollover issue.