Insights

It may come as no big surprise that you wouldn’t have much luck trying to purchase flood insurance for your home on a barrier island in the middle of a catastrophic hurricane. However, let’s say [...]

Insurance is purchased for almost every aspect of our lives from health and disability to our homes and cars in order to protect us from a liability or bad event that could be financially [...]

In early September I wrote about the effects of uncertainty on financial markets and investing. There is a high level of correlation between fear and ambiguity, which the recent market downturn [...]

On a recent trip to the Baltimore/Washington D.C. region, I had the opportunity to meet with several financial advisors over lunch to discuss their methods of mitigating risk within their credit [...]

John walks into a deli and asks what sandwiches are available. The counter guy responds that there are two choices: A turkey hoagie or pastrami on rye. John replies that he will have the turkey [...]

Barron’s wrote a cover article, “The Annual 50 Best Annuities Review”, in their July 22, 2018 edition with a section that highlighted the growing success of Structured Annuities. The article [...]

One of the ultimate strategies for a concentrated position is the zero-cost collar. The scenario presents itself when an investor has a large position, typically due to a job at a publicly traded [...]

“Buffer annuities will continue to grow in popularity: Blackrock research finds that 39 percent of retirement savers would move further away from their cash holdings if their capital was [...]

February was a good test run for the inevitable market downturn. After being on cruise control for approximately two years the fear of inflationary pressures combined with quickly rising rates [...]

Downside protection in a portfolio is a key need for many clients. Whether simply due to a conservative investor approaching retirement (e.g., 55 – 65+ group) or views that the market may be long [...]

As we leave 2016 behind and prepare for 2017, I wanted to share some of the themes we have recently been speaking and writing about. Over the last quarter, we penned four articles, appeared in [...]

Joe Halpern joined Jill Malandrino, Markets Reporter for the popular Voice of America segment on Nasdaq Facebook Live to discuss market volatility going into the national election and what may be [...]

Last week I penned an article in the November issue of Investment Advisor (a ThinkAdvisor publication); the article discusses how the VIX communicates expected volatility over the next 30 days. [...]

I recently authored an article on retail investment returns which appears on the Nasdaq website. A longer version of the article is printed below: My plan for driving to work is simple – follow [...]

Part one of a series of articles on product development “I have never seen a bad backtest” is an often stated criticism of backtesting that has a high degree of truth to it – many [...]

Check out our webinar on Beta vs. Delta. Beta is one of the classic measurements within the financial industry. It is one of the first measurements shown on Yahoo Finance, right under the bid-ask [...]

Market upheaval can be gut wrenching. The market can experience 5% and 10% declines with surprising frequency, with a typical bounce back relatively quickly. But once in a while you get a 2008 [...]

Investors generally fear the unknown. Unfortunately, traditional market exposure is full of unknowns – market corrections occur without warning, with no telling how deep a drop or how long [...]

Joe Halpern discusses Defined Outcomes as well as general market commentary with Chuck Jaffe of the MoneyLife Talk Show LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW The opinions of Joseph Halpern are as of the date [...]

Financial innovation fuels a burgeoning mix of products whose performance characteristics investors often misunderstand. In response to the perennial threat of fee and margin compression, the [...]

In September 2014, Exceed Investments and the Nasdaq launched the first family of defined outcome indexes (Here’s our original blog post on the launch). The indexes allow investors to access [...]

I recently came upon a Seeking Alpha article by Alliance Bernstein titled Structured Notes: Read the Fine Print. The article expressed a fairly negative and, in my opinion, inaccurate view of [...]

The unpredictable nature of the market can be terrifying. Any hint of volatility sends skittish investors in search of skilled managers to guide them through pending storms. But even when armed [...]

The investing world is slowly but surely getting a little scarier as flashpoints are adding to the unease of an already longer than typical bull market. Is there contagion from Greece? What is [...]

I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at a Nasdaq-hosted Webinar titled “Optimizing Behavioral Economics Using Defined Outcome Investing”. The webinar will cover various factors that [...]

The average investor defines and mitigates risk in ways that do not align neatly with classical financial theory. Deeply ingrained aversions to loss, risk and ambiguity often lead to investment [...]

With market volatility picking up in recent months, coupled with a bull market that is now 6 years and running, a few themes have been top of mind with the investing community. I wanted to share [...]

Exceed Investments performed a series of additional analyses on the raw data gathered by WealthManagement.com for our commissioned study, Viability Study: Exchange Traded Structured Products. [...]