You are not out in left field. I felt the same way months ago. Why buy the inverse, as it will decay over time as regardless. You're better off shorting the side your against. That way decay and volatility play in your favor regardless of which side you want to play. Made perfect sense to me too, but I couldn't short either using Ameritrade.
I would absolutely short JDST right now if I could. It will only run so far then begin to break down. No point in shorting JNUG regardless of which side you're on as it has more room to the upside should gold and minors turn bullish.
JNUG does suck however because of the way they managed the fund with excess cash and not planning for an influx of interest in their product. Rebalancing should have been in their prospectus given such an occurrence arose, with immediate action to invest in a diversified basket that should have been previously defined.
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