Investment Management
Engineering Lower Risk Portfolios, Without Sacrificing Returns
Asymmetric Portfolio Construction
Navigating Increasingly Volatile Markets with Greater Certainty
“Asymmetric portfolio construction” is about structuring portfolios so the upside meaningfully outweighs the downside—not just chasing returns, but shaping the payoff profile.
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​In today’s environment, managing risk is just as important as pursuing returns. Rather than relying solely on traditional diversification, we incorporate a wide range of strategies designed to improve the shape of returns over time. This includes selective use of downside protection, tactical cash management, alternative investments, and opportunistic rebalancing during periods of market dislocation.
The objective is straightforward:
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Limit the impact of major drawdowns
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Preserve the ability to participate in market upside
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Capitalize on volatility when it creates opportunity
By thoughtfully combining these elements, we aim to build portfolios that are more resilient, more adaptive, and better positioned to compound wealth over full market cycles. This approach reflects our broader philosophy—blending discipline and flexibility, analytics and intuition, and a deep understanding of both markets and investor behavior.
An Approach You Can Stick With.
Our 40/30/30 framework involves redirecting 20% of your portfolio from stocks and 10% from bonds to create a third 30% sleeve, which is allocated to liquid and transparent alternative investments. Alternative investments can introduce a new level of robust defense for your portfolio in turbulent or uncertain markets. They can also offer out-sized returns.
Our investment strategy focuses on protecting your portfolio by allowing for more flexibility in its construction. It includes both a passive and active investing approach. We are able to provide you with efficiency and cost savings through prudent use of passive ETFs in certain areas, but we also add substantial value by utilizing strategies that actively manage both market trends and market risk.
Strategies that actively manage both market trends and market risk
Combination of passive and active investing approach
Portfolio protection against potential severe losses
Efficiency and cost savings
The cornerstone of our investment philosophy is proactive risk management. We take an enhanced approach to diversification—integrating risk-managed strategies designed to reduce the impact of downside volatility while maintaining exposure to long-term growth.
Our process provides the flexibility to thoughtfully customize portfolios, including the selective use of alternative investments, to better align with each client’s objectives and evolving market conditions.
At its core, our philosophy is simple: A portfolio that spends less time recovering may spend more time compounding.
When our indicators suggest an elevated probability of a meaningful shift in market trends, we expand beyond traditional diversification. This includes incorporating a broader range of non-traditional strategies—such as alternative mutual funds and ETFs—into the core portfolio.
The objective is to help mitigate significant drawdowns, enhance resilience, and position portfolios to navigate periods of heightened uncertainty with greater confidence and control. cornerstone of our investment philosophy is proactive risk management.
Traditional asset allocation, whereby portfolios are constantly adjusted to produce diversification benefits as market conditions change, is in and of itself a perfectly respectable tool to managing equity risk. However, the problem is that when you enter abnormal markets, asset classes become highly correlated, meaning they move together and you don’t get the diversification benefits.
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During the brutal bear market of 2008, for instance, many investors held assets that supposedly had low correlation, historically. Yet, when the markets crashed, those correlations went up sharply and all assets went down, together. For most investors, their diversified portfolios failed and large losses followed. It’s in those market environments that you really need to have done something different to manage downside risk. In 2008, we did.
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Recent studies have shown that diversification only offers a limited amount of protection and is successful approximately just 65 per cent of the time. As a result, it does not protect a portfolio from drawdown during major market events and is successful primarily in normal and low-risk periods. *
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Our advanced risk-engineered platform protects your investment portfolio and provides you with a higher degree of certainty that you will be able to maintain your current lifestyle, bringing peace of mind and the flexibility that real life demands.
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* SSGA "Walking The Tightrope: How CIOs are Balancing Upside Participation and Downside Protection, 2015
