Perp vs leveraged ETF cost calculator
Compare KORU vs EWY perp holding costs, or change the instruments and assumptions. Estimate broker fees, ETF expenses and Hyperliquid funding costs to find a projected break-even holding period.
Compare ETF and perp holding costs
Your exposure
Direxion · Daily MSCI South Korea Bull 3X ETF · MSCI Korea 25/50 Index
EWY is an unleveraged South Korean equity ETF, not KORU's index or its daily reset strategy. Similar initial exposure does not imply identical returns.
USD throughout. ETF purchase value = own money + broker borrowing. Perp notional = own money × perp leverage. A 3x ETF already contains leverage.
Leveraged ETF · broker
ETF price is an editable assumption, not a live quote. Enter your broker quote. Fractional shares are used for sizing. Negative ETF daily leverage means inverse exposure; the ETF shares are still bought long.
1.32% issuer net expense ratio · checked 2026-10-23 · The fund fee input remains editable.
Tiger SG US fee preset · edit all parameters
Commission = min(max(per-share fee, minimum), cap × value). GST applies to commission, platform and settlement; SEC applies only to the sell, without GST. Actual broker rounding may differ.
Hyperliquid · long perp
Fee metadata unavailable: assuming 2× HIP-3 fees; edit to match your market.
Base fees use HL tier 0; account discounts and any builder fees require a manual adjustment. Effective per-side rate: 0.09%.
Positive funding: longs pay, shorts receive. Negative funding: shorts pay, longs receive. The average uses available hourly payments: —/168 samples.
Manual liquidation assumptions
Fetching public market snapshot…
Live funding unavailable or loading. Projection currently uses manual funding.
KORU · 30 days
$6.28
$0.21/day including trading fees
xyz:EWY · 3x long · 30 days
$59.18
$1.97/day including trading fees
Break-even holding period
No positive break-even: ETF is cheaper at every positive holding period (ties at day 0 are possible).
Crossing = entry/exit fee difference ÷ difference in daily holding cost. Estimates can extend beyond the 90-day chart.
Cumulative cost · 0–90 days
Constant prices and funding; includes an exit at the entry price. Negative costs mean net credits. This chart models costs, not investment returns.
Compare available ETF pairs
Uses your money, holding days, borrowing, broker rates, order type and base perp fees. Each row matches initial exposure using the ETF’s signed daily target and issuer net fee (1.00% if unverified). All rows use the calculator’s editable ETF price assumption; enter each fund’s quote after loading it. Perp costs use live funding, regardless of the calculator’s projection mode. Funding rates are quoted from the long side; a short receives positive funding. Click a row or its ETF button to load it.
Loading live preset availability…
Seven-day history loads when this table approaches the viewport, with at most three requests at once and a five-minute cache per market. “…” means loading; “n/a” means unavailable. ETF-reference perps include the ETF’s embedded expenses in their reference price; the perp column shows trading fees and funding only. These are cost scenarios, not return forecasts.
Know what the costs leave out
The ETF resets its leverage daily; compounding and volatility change long-term returns. Swap financing is already built into its price and is not added as a separate number here. An unborrowed ETF holding has no margin liquidation; broker borrowing can trigger a margin call or forced sale.
Perp leverage drifts as price and equity change. Liquidation uses an isolated long with own money as margin, fixed position size, and the manual maintenance margin assumption; the estimated liquidation-tier rate is 2.50%. Entry fees, funding depletion, other positions and collateral changes are excluded from that estimate.
US-linked perps trade around a deployer oracle even while the US market is closed. Oracle, mark and execution prices can diverge; liquidation follows the mark price. KORU, EWY and US index proxies are not identical baskets. Selecting a market does not guarantee an exact hedge.
ETF returns, bid/ask spread, slippage, FX conversion, taxes, dividends and unlisted broker charges are excluded. Maker orders may not fill. Funding is a projection, not a locked borrowing rate.
Method references: Hyperliquid fees, margin tiers, liquidation formula. Tiger settings follow the editable comparison preset.
How leveraged ETFs and perps work
Leveraged ETFs: daily reset and compounding
A leveraged ETF seeks a multiple of its benchmark’s daily return before fees and expenses. Its daily reset rebalances exposure, so returns over a longer holding period depend on the path of daily prices. Volatility decay describes how compounding in a volatile, reversing market can erode returns; it is not a fixed charge. Trending markets can produce different compounding outcomes.
KORU is the Direxion Daily MSCI South Korea Bull 3X ETF. Its daily leverage target is a fund objective, not a promised return. EWY is the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, an unleveraged South Korean equity index fund. KORU and a leveraged EWY perp can start with similar directional exposure while following different return paths.
Supported comparisons span TQQQ/SQQQ versus XYZ100, UPRO/SPXL/SPXU versus SP500, SOXL/SOXS versus SMH, TSLL versus TSLA, NVDL/NVDU versus NVDA, CONL versus COIN, MSTU/MSTX versus MSTR, KORU versus EWY, BITX versus BTC and ETHU versus ETH. SOXL and KORU also pair with perps on those ETFs at 1× perp leverage. Availability is checked against live xyz and main-dex listings. Inverse ETFs use short perps; custom comparisons have an editable direction.
Read each reference note: trade.xyz describes XYZ100 as its own index market, without identifying it as Nasdaq-100. SOXL/SOXS target the NYSE Semiconductor Index, while SMH tracks the MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index. These are proxy comparisons. Perps on leveraged ETFs inherit the ETF’s daily reset and embedded expenses. YINN is excluded because no matching China index perp was verified. Issuer expense sources are linked in the calculator; unverified net figures use an editable 1.00% assumption.
Perps: margin, funding and liquidation
Perpetual futures provide derivative exposure without a scheduled expiry. You post margin, pay trading fees on execution, and pay or receive periodic funding. Hyperliquid funding settles hourly: longs pay shorts when the rate is positive; shorts pay longs when it is negative. Position losses and funding payments can reduce account equity; insufficient equity relative to maintenance requirements can lead to liquidation.
HIP-3 markets on Hyperliquid
HIP-3 enables builder-deployed perpetual markets. Markets such as xyz:EWY have deployer-defined oracle and contract settings. A perp is not ownership of the referenced ETF. Check the current listing, fee multiplier, leverage limits and oracle behavior; the calculator fetches public xyz and main-dex market data and labels unavailable data.
Cost components and break-even holding time
ETF costs
Broker entry and exit charges are separate from fund expenses. The annual expense ratio includes the management fee and other operating expenses and is reflected in fund value, rather than charged as a separate trading invoice. The calculator approximates it as a daily cost using your annual fund fee input. Borrowing from your broker adds margin interest. Fund financing and tracking effects can also affect returns and are not separately estimated here.
Perp costs
The model applies your maker or taker rate and market fee multiplier to entry and exit notional. It projects hourly funding using a live snapshot, an available historical average, or a manual rate. Negative funding is a credit for a long and a cost for a short; positive funding reverses those payments. Update rates and fees for the market and your account; neither a current snapshot nor an average predicts future payments.
When is each cheaper?
For short holding periods, round-trip trading fees can dominate the comparison. Over longer holds, recurring ETF expenses, broker interest and perp funding accumulate. Lower perp entry fees can be overtaken by positive funding; low or negative funding can change that balance. There is no universal cheaper instrument or holding period.
The break-even point is where the two projected total costs meet, found by dividing the difference in round-trip fees by the difference in daily costs. A positive crossing may not exist. Match underlying exposure before comparing: the ETF’s own daily leverage and any leverage embedded in a perp’s reference asset both matter.
All editable prices and fee presets are assumptions you can change. This constant-price, constant-funding model compares costs rather than returns. It does not simulate volatility decay, future funding changes or changing position values. Spreads, slippage, FX, taxes and dividends can affect the real outcome.
Perp vs leveraged ETF FAQ
Which leveraged ETFs can I compare?
Presets include TQQQ and SQQQ with XYZ100 (a trade.xyz index perp, not verified as Nasdaq-100); UPRO, SPXL and SPXU with SP500; SOXL and SOXS with SMH; TSLL with TSLA; NVDL and NVDU with NVDA; CONL with COIN; MSTU and MSTX with MSTR; KORU with EWY; BITX with BTC; and ETHU with ETH. SOXL and KORU also have comparisons against perps referencing those leveraged ETFs themselves, defaulting to 1x perp leverage. SMH and the semiconductor ETFs track different indices. Presets appear only when their market is live. Inverse presets select a short perp. You can search all live xyz and main-dex markets and enter a custom ETF, signed daily leverage and fee. Unverified net expense ratios default to an editable 1.00%; verify with the issuer. YINN has no verified matching China index perp and is excluded.
What is the difference between KORU and an EWY perp?
KORU, the Direxion Daily MSCI South Korea Bull 3X ETF, targets leveraged daily South Korean equity index exposure. EWY, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, tracks a South Korean equity index without that daily leverage target. An EWY perp is a derivative referencing EWY rather than ownership of ETF shares. Matching initial exposure does not make their returns identical over time.
How does daily reset affect a leveraged ETF?
A leveraged ETF rebalances toward its daily leverage target. Compounding makes returns over longer periods depend on the sequence of daily moves. Volatile, reversing markets can cause volatility decay, while sustained trends can have different compounding effects. Volatility decay is not a fixed fee and is not modeled by this cost calculator.
How does Hyperliquid hourly funding affect holding costs?
Hyperliquid settles funding hourly between long and short positions. Positive funding means longs pay shorts; negative funding means longs receive payments. This calculator projects the selected hourly rate against perp notional over the holding period. Future rates can change, so a live snapshot or historical average is not a locked financing rate.
What is a HIP-3 market such as xyz:EWY?
HIP-3 supports builder-deployed perpetual markets on Hyperliquid. In a market name such as xyz:EWY, xyz identifies the perp DEX and EWY identifies the market. The deployer defines the oracle and contract settings. This calculator checks public xyz and main-dex market data; a preset name alone does not guarantee a currently available market.
When is a perp cheaper than a leveraged ETF?
For a short holding period, entry and exit fees can dominate. Over longer periods, cumulative funding, ETF expenses and any broker borrowing interest matter more. A perp with lower trading fees can become more expensive if positive funding accumulates. Negative funding can reduce a long’s modeled cost, while a short pays negative funding and receives positive funding. The cheaper option depends on the inputs and comparable underlying exposure.
What does the break-even holding period mean?
It is the holding time when projected ETF and perp costs are equal: the difference in round-trip trading fees divided by the difference in daily holding costs. The model assumes constant prices, notional and funding. Some inputs produce no positive crossing or equal costs throughout. This is a cost comparison, not an investment return forecast.
Which inputs are live and which can I change?
The calculator fetches public Hyperliquid market snapshots, fee multiplier metadata, margin tiers and available funding history. You can select live, historical average or manual funding and edit fee and exposure assumptions. ETF price, annual fund fee and broker settings are editable assumptions rather than live ETF quotes. When data is unavailable, the calculator labels its manual fallback.
Does the calculator include liquidation and every cost?
It estimates an isolated long or short perp liquidation price using margin assumptions, but excludes fees and funding depletion from that estimate. Actual liquidation depends on the account and market. It models ETF trading fees, annual fund expenses, broker borrowing interest and perp fees and funding. Spreads, slippage, FX, taxes, dividends, ETF swap financing and return effects are not separately modeled. Fully paid ETF shares have no margin liquidation; broker borrowing can trigger forced sales.