Caught something interesting looking back at late February market action. While the broad indices were getting hammered (S&P 500 down 0.9%, Nasdaq down 3.4%), certain leveraged plays absolutely crushed it. The best etf picks that month were actually pretty wild if you knew where to look.

Two main things drove the winners. First, there was this AI panic spreading through the market - everyone suddenly worried about automation replacing jobs. Anthropic's Claude tool announcement spooked people about legacy systems getting outdated, which is probably why IBM got absolutely demolished, down 23.7% for the month. Second, geopolitical tensions with Iran ramped up hard. Military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz plus U.S. strikes had oil markets jumping.

So here's what actually performed. South Korean semiconductor plays went absolutely mental - the Direxion MSCI Daily South Korea Bull 3X was up like 96%. Makes sense when you think about it, Samsung and SK Hynix riding the AI chip demand wave. Energy was another obvious winner with the geopolitical chaos pushing oil up. The 3X leveraged oil ETN gained 34.6% while even the unleveraged oil fund added 8.8%. Utilities also had a solid run at 34% gains thanks to data center power demand. Industrials weren't far behind either.

If you were looking at the best etf opportunities during that stretch, the common thread was pretty clear - either you rode the semiconductor/AI boom or you caught the energy rally from Middle East tensions. NVIDIA's earnings beat probably helped sentiment too. Anyway, interesting how much alpha was sitting in these leveraged plays if you understood what was actually moving markets that month.