You all should learn to sell options to generate income instead of speculating on leverage bond funds.
Covered calls on your index etf's, cash covered put spreads, and even iron condors are a good way to generate some returns off your holdings without buying instruments you don't understand.
I'll admit I only have a basic understanding of options, but what happens when I miss the guess on the target price and my index ETF is called away and I'm stuck with cash < the price of the ETF x shares?
You can also buy the call back if it goes through your strike to prevent you from having a taxable event. The call will be more expensive and you will lose money on that trade. You other option is to roll the covered call forward- Say you own have sold the 10/16 calls on VTI at $102 and it is now at $103.26. Instead of just taking your $132 loss, you can sell the $104 November 20th covered call for $130 and use the proceeds to cover you loss (now $2). You can keep rolling the options forward in this manner until the direction reverses and you collect a premium.
You can sell calls further out of the money and make less of a premium but they have a lesser chance of being called. Covered calls are probably the easiest to understand but there is still quite a bit to learn about them.
Selling puts is actually the most profitable options strategy. Say you want to buy VTI. Instead of just buying 100 shares of VTI at $103, sell the $103 put november put for $2. If VTI falls below $103, you will be assigned the shares but your total outlay will be $10,100 instead of $10,300. You can roll these forward too. Say VTI goes to $105 in two weeks, sell the $105 put and buy back the $103 put that will now have decreased in value. If/when the stock is eventually assigned to you, you will be in the same position you would have been if you had bought in the first place, but your cost basis will be less.
An iron condor is essentially selling a spread above and below the strike price. As long as the price stays in the band you have assigned, you keep the premium.
I often sell 3 month put spreads on Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet said Berkshire will buy back shares at 120% of book value which is ~$120. You can sell the January $120 put and buy the $115 put for a net credit of $50 right now. Your maximum loss is $450 ($12000-$11500+50). This is a 10% return in 3 months.
I wouldn't recommend doing this with your entire account by any means, but when you do this kind of thing in a diversified manner it can give you a nice income from your index funds without having to resort to yield chasing.
By diversified I mean this: Say you own 1000 shares of VTI. Say you sell 10 covered calls for $107 December 18th for $85 each. Then sell 5 $97-$95 put spreads for $35 each. Your net credit will be $1025. If VTI is between $107 and $97 on December 18th you pocket $1025 (1% in 2 months) for a 6% annualized yield. If VTI falls below $95 you will be out $1000 (which is covered by your premiums). If it goes above $107, roll the options forward and you get to keep the premium from the put spread.