Investors are plowing record amounts of cash into risky funds that turbocharge investment bets during a market rout thatis roiling stocks and bonds.

Nearly $25 billion has flowed into leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds this year, according to Morningstar Direct. This is already above 2008’s record haul of $17 billion.

Inverse and leveraged ETFs are complex vehicles typically meant for short-term trades. Inverse funds seek to provide the opposite movement of an underlying index, asset or derivative. Some, for example, move inversely to the Nasdaq-100 index, allowing investors to wager the technology benchmark will lose ground.

Inverse funds also often use leverage, or borrowed money, as do leveraged funds. This can magnify an investment’s return, although leverage can also amplify losses. Depending on the amount of leverage, such funds seek to boost daily returns by up to three times.

To be sure, this is a niche area of the ETF market. And most investors are searching for places to hide from the market storm prompted byFederal Reserve interest-rate rises, fears ofglobal recession, war in Ukraine and an energy crunch.