Don,

I have some thoughts....  If you are planning to invest in an inverse
index, I think you should be clearer in your wording.  I think you
know all this, but I'll explain anyway because Inverse Indices do not
short sell the underlying Index and do not mirror the risks of a short
sale....

When you short an investment, you sell something you don't have, have
to borrow that investment from someone else (to complete the short
sale) and pay hefty interest (stock borrowed fees) on the investment
loaned to you; but you do also have the value of the proceeds of the
sale in your account.  While this is fine and you make money when the
thing you short does down, you can lose all of your money AND owe even
more money if the thing you short goes up. Shorting is very risky
because of the multiplier effect on your possible losses.

On the other hand, when you buy an inverse investment, your investment
is designed to go up and down daily only to the the opposite
percentage of the inverse.  If the investment goes up 0.5/5/50%, you
inverse goes down only 0.5/5/50%. Even in the worst case, your inverse
can just go down to zero.  You never have the problem of losing more
than your initial investment - which can happen on a short.  There is
some additional market risk with inverse indices in that the inverse
is really a set of futures and options investments that together
result in daily percentage price moves that mirror that of the
underlying investment.  There is more risk that futures and options
might not settle in a market catastrophe compared with a regular index
which is made up from bundles of real shares in the underlying
companies.  That futures/options settlement problem will not occur
unless there is a black swan event - but could happen.

However, overall, investing in inverse indices is far less risky than
shorting and I think you are talking about inverse indices.

I hope this helps.

Mike