ASPY, the ETF that can provide shelter for fund investors as volatility levels rise
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Wall Street has watched the S&P 500 (SP500) close out Thursday’s trading in the red for the sixth straight session in a row as the pendulum continued to favor the bears.
Benchmark tracking S&P 500 ETFs like the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:IVV), Vanguard 500 Index Fund (NYSEARCA:VOO), and SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) continue to slide as the investment community worries over a potential looming recession, heightened levels of inflation, rising rates, lockdowns in China, and concerns over the Russian Ukrainian war.
However, there is some shelter for market tracking investors, and that’s under the umbrella of the ASYMshares ASYMmetric S&P 500ETF (NYSEARCA:ASPY).
ASPY is a rules-based, quantitative long/short hedging strategy wrapped inside of an exchange traded fund that aims to offer investors protection against bear market losses, by being net short, while also seeks to capture the majority of bull market gains, by being net long.
Furthermore, ASPY is pegged to the S&P 500 and it uses the index as its basic building block, from there the fund integrates its proprietary risk management technology to measure, monitor, and manage risk, acting as a gas and break during times of market volatility.
As the markets run hot ASPY pushes the chips on the table and when things tighten up it reins in its exposures similar to the ways an investment bank would operate.
What do the returns show?
Year-to-date IVV, VOO, and SPY have lost roughly 19% and are approaching bear market territory. ASPY on the other hand has provided market participants with losses of 8.5% in 2022.
Moreover, over the past five completed trading sessions dating to the May 6th open, IVV, VOO, and SPY have tumbled a little over 5% as market volatility and uncertainty levels remain elevated. Over the same time period, ASPY has finished slightly in the green at +0.3%.
Darren Schuringa, CEO of ASYMmetric ETFs, told Seeking Alpha during a podcast interview, that “ASPY is the ASYMmetric version of the S&P 500, which means ASYMmetric returns are the ability to make money in down markets and produce positive returns and capture the majority of bull markets.” See the complete podcast with Darren Schuringa here.