Built to capture more upside
than downside.
Most portfolios are built to track markets. Ours are built to outlast them. The ASYMMETRY® System is engineered around a single objective: structurally more upside potential than downside risk across a full market cycle.
Unconstrained. Mathematical. Unapologetic.
Mike Shell manages every portfolio directly. There is no committee, no model to track, no benchmark to defend. The ASYMMETRY® System applies a systematic, rules-based process to a global universe of exchange-traded securities — entering positions with asymmetric potential and exiting them on predefined conditions, not discretion.
Position sizing is governed by volatility. Exits are defined before entry. Every decision is driven by mathematical expectation, not market narrative.
No benchmark to hug. No allocation to defend.
When the exit condition is triggered, we exit. When the setup is absent, we don’t force one. Most portfolio managers are structurally constrained — by mandates, by peer comparison, by career risk. We have none of those constraints. The only mandate is asymmetric risk management.
Active drawdown control means capital is never held hostage to hope. Losses are bounded by design — not managed after the fact.
Every position is entered because the expected value is positive — with asymmetric potential. If the math doesn’t justify the trade, we don’t take it.
Exit conditions are established before a position is opened. There is no holding through hope, no waiting for a recovery that may not come.
Position size is determined by realized volatility, not conviction. This prevents any single position from becoming a portfolio-defining event — in either direction.
Drawdown is managed dynamically across the full portfolio — not as a reaction to loss, but as a structural feature of the system from day one.
Your capital. Your account. Your name on it.
ASYMMETRY® Managed Portfolios are delivered as separately managed accounts custodied at Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions. Unlike pooled vehicles, every account is titled in the client’s name — with full visibility into every position and every trade.
Real-time online access to every holding and every trade, as it happens. No quarterly black box — complete visibility, always.
Your account may be fully or partially liquidated any business day. Capital is never locked up or subject to redemption gates.
The account is owned by and titled in your name — not a fund. You hold the assets directly at Goldman Sachs. We manage them.
The ability to sell specific tax lots enables precise tax-loss harvesting and gain deferral — a capability pooled vehicles cannot offer.
Specific securities, sectors, countries, or markets can be excluded at the client level. Restrictions are honored without disrupting the system.