Option Based Portfolio Management

Exceed Investments
Let Us Be Your Options Expert
Why Options?
Options can provide advantages in all market environments:

In flat markets, they can provide higher yield.
Covered Calls
- Monthly Yield
- Additional participation and protection
- Low market correlation

In down markets, they can partially or fully offset loss.
Collars
- Tail-risk protection
- Participate on upside
- Consistent, low volatility performance

In up markets, they participate in a predetermined percentage of the uptick – including leveraged opportunities.
Leveraged spreads
- Leveraged Upside
- Potentially add buffered protection
- Take advantage of bull market environments

Across complete market cycles, they may reduce risk and improve absolute returns.
Tactical Approach
- Protection + Participation
- Take advantage of option characteristics
- Take advantage of market environments
Option trading can be complicated and risky, and some strategies may cause you to lose your entire investment. See Disclosures
Why Exceed
Performance
A history of strong risk-adjusted performance across our portfolio of strategies – Contact us for the most recent fact sheet and performance metrics
Experience
Principals’ past experience includes: Exchange specialists and market makers, Global bank trading, Risk Management, Proprietary, and Institutional Level Portfolio Management: Institutional level $1B+ portfolios on behalf of ING and Lehman.
Innovation
Pioneer / early implementer of defined outcome / structured note strategies with ‘40 act product and indexes.
Partnership
A history of strong partnerships including current alliances with TD Ameritrade, Catalyst Funds, and Tactical Fund Advisors
Financial Expertise Without Limits
Strategy Spotlight
Option strategies provide a number of unique benefits that may add further diversification, a better fit for an investment goal, and potential for alpha. If seeking a market hedge, generating yield, or a combination of both, option strategies may be for you. Following are a couple of examples that illustrate the power of option solutions.
Legend
- Buffered Shield Strategy
- S&P 500
- Stepped Up Floor
1. Protect
2. Participate
3. Step Up Protection
For illustrative purposes only. Not intended to represent the actual performance of any strategy or of Exceed’s investment results.
Option trading can be complicated and risky, and some strategies may cause you to lose your entire investment. See Disclosures
Strategy Spotlight: Covered Call

- Provide additional yield in “flat” markets
- Low correlation to markets

- Reduce cost basis
- Maintain investment horizon
- Opportunistic in volatile markets

- Participation on upside movement
- Capture excess premium
- Possible double benefit
For illustrative purposes only. Not intended to represent actual performance of any strategy or of Exceed’s investment results.
Option trading can be complicated and risky, and some strategies may cause you to lose your entire investment. See Disclosures
Who We Are
Over 50 years of combined options focused experience including both listed and over the counter trading, engineering option based strategies in multiple instruments (including structured notes, indexes, mutual funds, and institutional level portfolios), advising, managing and educating, the Exceed team can assist in your needs.

Joe Halpern

Joe Halpern
Over a 25 year financial career, Mr. Halpern has structured, priced, and traded billions of dollars in structured products, exotic derivatives, and listed vanilla options in addition to managing trading groups, supervising risk management and participating in executive level, firm-wide strategic initiatives.
Mr. Halpern founded Exceed Investments in order to take advantage of the unique characteristics that options present in defining, hedging, and/or optimizing a market exposure. Exceed’s first initiative was to combine the beneficial elements of structured notes with that of mutual funds. Exceed currently sub-advises on four mutual funds that use elements of structured notes in providing a defined level of downside protection. Consistently a thought leader in the space, under the direction of Mr. Halpern Exceed continues to innovate, resulting in a number of 1sts in the industry inclusive of the first mutual fund using a structured notes approach, optimization features allowing for evergreen characteristics, and with more to come.
Prior to founding Exceed Investments, Mr. Halpern was a Director at Lamco, the asset management division of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. He managed the exotic derivatives commodities book, a multi-billion complex OTC derivative portfolio, was the chief negotiator on a number of global bank settlements and was a lead member of a task force on structured products.
Prior to joining Lamco, Mr. Halpern was Director on the Equity Derivatives Trading desk of ING Financial Markets, a global financial institution. As a Director, Mr. Halpern was
responsible for structuring, pricing, and trading an array of exotic derivatives for the global sales force. Prior to joining ING, Mr. Halpern was SVP of Strategy and Risk for Kellogg Capital Group’s derivatives division.
From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Halpern was at Letco Specialists, since acquired by TD Securities, where he began his career as a derivatives trader. Mr. Halpern became the youngest partner at Letco Specialists. He was responsible for the IT build-out for the company’s east coast operations while managing a trading division and a proprietary portfolio. He was also the primary market maker on the American Stock Exchange in a number of highly volatile, active derivative listings.
Mr. Halpern lives in New York City with his wife and three children.

John R. Beldy

John R. Beldy
John has over 25 years of experience managing, trading and developing options strategies as well as institutional level experience in index arb trading, risk management and portfolio analysis.
In 2021, John joined Exceed Investments as a partner to lead on its SMA initiative inclusive of launching a Covered Call strategy, which combines passive ETF investing with an active options overlay in seeking to deliver attractive returns with dampened volatility – a strategy managed by him since 2013 at another firm, in which Exceed has acquired a 50% ownership interest.
Before joining Exceed, John was a Manager of Options Trading for 15 years at Charles Schwab Institutional, where he was instrumental in creating structured option hedging strategies for Financial Advisors. In addition, he developed analytical tools to improve hedging and obtain the best execution. To promote Schwab’s capabilities in options trading, John partnered with Schwab’s business development offices and relationship managers. He would consistently lead the conversation with prospects and existing clients.
Prior to joining Charles Schwab, John was a Managing Member and Index Arbitrage Trader at Sovereign Capital Partners. He distinguished himself in the areas of ETF market making, index arbitrage, risk management, and portfolio analysis.
Prior to that, John worked as an equity options market maker on the American Stock Exchange, responsible for the trading and risk management of a portfolio of options on highly volatile equities such as Motorola and Intel. John started his career on the Pacific Options Exchange, in addition to his Market Making responsibilities on Technology stocks, such as Applied Materials and Microsoft, he assisted in the development of the PSE Technology Index.
John earned an MBA from Pepperdine University and a BS in Finance from Bryant University. He currently lives in the Denver area with his wife and son.
Opportunities To Partner
Product Expertise
- Separately Managed Accounts
- Portfolio Management
- Option Strategies
- Trading
- ETFs
- Indexes
- Mutual Funds
- Insurance structures (Annuities, VIT)
- Structured Notes
Business Expertise
- Strategy Development
- Strategy & Structure Alignment
- Product Positioning
- Product Launch
Blog
February 3, 2022
Case Study: How Options Investing Can Go Right (and Wrong) Using ARKK As an Example
In 2020, the ARKK Innovation ETF (ARKK) caught the imagination of the investing public after generating a 152% return for the year. ARKK seeks to invest in cutting edge, innovative companies – tomorrow’s most promising...Read More
January 5, 2022
John Beldy Joins Exceed as Partner, Separate Managed Account Program Launch Marks Next Chapter of Exceed’s Option Offerings
Exceed Investments is proud to announce that John Beldy has joined Exceed Investments with his first initiative to spearhead the launch of a Separate Management Account (SMA) program. John Beldy joins the firm with over...Read More
January 9, 2019
Selling Insurance in Stormy Market Conditions
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...Read More
December 7, 2018
Puts Provide Market Insurance
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 inconvenient...Read More
November 9, 2018
Consider Mitigating Market Uncertainty via Option Strategies
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 snapped into focus. When...Read More