If a CEO oversaw this sort of performance, they’d be ridden out on a rail. A fund manager? You better expect a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and prison time.

But there’s something different about this investment. It’s lost 99% in the past two years, yet it’s rarely in the news and it hasn’t been shut down. In fact, it still trades 30 million shares a day.

Meet the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ). It takes the crown as the worst investment we at StreetAuthority have ever seen.

The fund is built to triple the Russell 1000 Financial Services Index… in the opposite direction. So if the index is down 1 point, FAZ rises three points. During the financial crisis, buying a few shares would have actually been a nice hedge for your portfolio. But these highly leveraged short funds are time bombs if you hold them too long. Once the rebound took hold, owning FAZ meant disaster…
 

FAZ has its place — if you’re a trader or if you want to throw in a few bucks to hedge your portfolio. But if you’re an investor, the chart is crystal clear: Don’t touch these shares with a 10-foot pole.

P.S. — We’ve just identified six surprising events that could break your portfolio wide open in 2011. Knowing these pivot points in advance lets you focus your investing strategy like a beam of light in the dark… and make a lot of money in a hurry. Get them free by s,imply watching this video presentation.