Thanks to Riggio for that. I have no bias against leveraged ETFs, however the problem I see with these is that their average volume is only a 10th of the 1X ETF (in the case of GDX). I would prefer to try and trade with the higher volume, but with the need to short, and the inability, I would still need to use the leveraged DUST with an average daily volume of about 200,000 shares. I guess I could use it, and just cut my purchase by half.

Seems strange there is not a 1x inverse, when there is a 2X.