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@inthehands There's also the option of doing it the old-fashioned way: Sell short and buy a protective call. It's fairly straightforward and you can do it on brokerages like Vanguard that don't let you trade in the inverse ETFs.

Example:
Sell 100 shares TSLA short @ $235
Buy 1 protective call at $300, let's say for 7/18/2025 at $15 (which costs you $1500)

Your loss is now capped: The call gives you the right to buy 100 shares of TSLA for $300, so if it goes over, you sell the call and close the short. Anywhere >= $300, you have lost $65+$15 = $80 per share, or $8000.

Anywhere over $220, you're still losing money.

Anywhere under $220, you're making money.

It exposes the other risk of shorting, of course: If you want to stay short, you have to keep rolling forward your protective call, so if the stock stays flat, it's going to cost you something like $1500 per 4 months. But that risk is there with the inverse ETFs too, it's just more clear here _why_ you're losing money.