UPRO targets three times the daily return of the S&P 500. Where SPY tracks the index one-for-one, UPRO aims to triple each day's move in both directions — a 1% index gain targets 3%, and a 1% loss targets -3%. It is one of the two main 3x S&P vehicles, the other being Direxion's SPXL.
ProShares UltraPro S&P500 (UPRO) is currently trading at $148.58. Over the past 52 weeks, UPRO has traded between a low of $88.15 and a high of $158.63. Recent daily volume is around 1.8M. These figures update live as the market moves.
UPRO uses total return swaps with major banks plus S&P 500 futures to reach its exposure, rebalancing daily. That rebalance is what makes the 3x figure a daily target rather than a period one. Over a long stretch, a leveraged fund's return can diverge sharply from three times the index's return — favourably in a smooth trend, painfully in a volatile market that ends where it began.
The two funds chase the same benchmark at the same leverage and track each other closely. The practical differences are liquidity, expense ratio and the swap counterparties each issuer uses. Traders generally pick on spread and volume at the moment they need the fill rather than on any structural advantage.
UPRO is a broad-market instrument, so it responds to whatever is moving the S&P as a whole — CPI and jobs releases, Fed decisions, and the mega-cap earnings that dominate index weight. Its range on a quiet day is unremarkable; on a 2% index day it moves 6%, which is precisely when volume arrives.