Frequently Asked Questions

Stone Wall Financial serves as a sub-advisor for the ETF, and the fund resides in ETF Architect’s trust. Stone Wall Financial delivers a full suite of SHEP® solutions as a Sub-Adviser to investment advisers, registered and exempt investment companies.

SHEP is our proprietary algorithmic trading platform. It combines the power of a robust technology system with our SHEP Edge algorithmic formulae designed to mitigate clients from risk during major market downturns and make an informed, rules-based, data-driven decision for reentry.

The Fund’s allocations to Equity ETFs and cash or cash equivalents are determined by an investment model developed by the Fund’s sub-adviser, Stone Wall Financial Group LLC that is driven by the Sub-Adviser’s proprietary trading platform, the SHEP® Quantitative Trading Platform (the “SHEP® Platform”). The SHEP® Platform stores historical security data, calculates necessary analytics, formulates algorithmic states across the entire historical period analyzed, and performs complex simulations that determine optimized risk threshold metrics unique to each security. The Model attempts to assess market risk and identify expected market upward or downward trends by evaluating technical indicators, proprietary data analytics, and the proximities of security price movements relative to the optimized risk threshold metrics determined by the SHEP® Platform.

Our use of AI with machine learning helps to automate the parameter tuning process in advanced algorithmic models, like the SHEP Edge. This is of great value to support our efforts to ensure that every SHEP security and model is optimized with greater efficiency and accuracy, reducing the risk of human errors in hopes of improving the model’s predictive capabilities.

The Fund employs an asset allocation strategy between U.S equity securities that generally mimic the performance of the S&P 500 Index, and cash or cash-equivalent investments, while attempting to tactically reduce volatility and mitigate draw downs in anticipation of market downturns. The Fund invests primarily in U.S. large capitalization equity securities and generally mimic the performance of the S&P 500 Index.

The Fund’s allocations to Equity ETFs and cash or cash equivalents are determined by an investment model that is driven by Stone Wall Financial Group’s proprietary trading platform, the SHEP® Quantitative Trading Platform. The SHEP® Platform stores historical security data, calculates necessary analytics, formulates algorithmic states across the entire historical period analyzed, and performs complex simulations that determine optimized risk threshold metrics unique to each security.

The Model is designed to identify a primary trend, or price direction, of stock and/or general market prices and assess their relationship to the SHEP® Platform’s defined metrics of such securities and/or the market. Where the Model’s results suggest a continuation of rising market trends, the Fund’s portfolio will maintain a higher allocation to equity securities. Whereas, when the Model results suggest falling market trends at levels that eclipse defined risks thresholds, the Fund’s portfolio will be positioned to increase or maintain a higher allocation to cash or cash-equivalent investments. At times the Model may identify a mixed market (i.e., trends that may be rising for some securities but falling for others) which will result in the Fund being partially invested in equity securities and partially invested in cash or cash-equivalent investments. The Fund’s asset allocations are dynamic and will change over time.