Bear funds buy put options, and I verified this by calling Rydex. If you look at “holdings” on Yahoo finance, it says cash,because put options are not one of the categories. If you are interested in this, just google “bear fund”. I can’t tell you the # of shares, because that is confidential. I did not check the intraday charts, and there is no need. Eric Janszen told me today that these bear funds should be held only for a few months, so you can profit from the dips and rises in the index. In 2000 – 2003, you could make a lot of money by holding the bear fund for 4 – 9 months. They are not long term investments; they are like put options, so they are for market timing.