With many shares on pricey valuations, I'm beginning to look at safe-ish ways of shorting the market. I have never shorted anything in my life and have generally been put off shorting due to the risks and complexity involved.

More recently I've been looking at ETF products which short indices such as this product which shorts the FTSE 250: http://www.boostetp.com/Product/32/equities/boost-ftse-250-1x-short-daily-etp/Pricing-Exchanges#.WWTAklH9mM8 There are good reasons for thinking the FTSE250 may suffer: we're seeing some signs of slowdown from retail shares in particular and I personally don't think the markets are fully pricing in Brexit risks. As negotiations develop I expect a few shocks to equity prices.

What I want to check is whether fellow investors have any words of warning about these types of products or whether you have any particular short ETFs you are a fan of? With this particular product I'm also unclear whether there's some sort of compounding effect or whether the value simply follows the FTSE250 inversely. E.g. if I put in £1000 and the FTSE250 halves in the next 3 years, does that mean I effectively make double my money (ignoring costs) or is there some other daily compounding effect I'm not clear on?

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