Protect Stage

At Horizon, we believe the second phase of a client’s financial journey should focus on preserving the wealth they have worked hard to build.

We call this the Protect stage. During this phase, the risk of loss becomes more significant than short-term volatility. The goal shifts to protecting a client’s portfolio from drawdowns that could derail their financial plan.

GOAL:
Preservation

PRIMARY RISK:
Loss

Mitigating risk — our approach to preserving wealth.

Key Risk: Portfolio Loss

Our disciplined risk mitigation strategies aim to
protect your wealth and reduce emotionally driven
decisions during turbulent markets—helping you
stay on track toward your long-term goals. While
still participating in equity markets, our approach
focuses on limiting potential losses, especially
as the Protect stage begins near the start of the
Spend stage, when there’s little time to recover
from major drawdowns.

Preserving wealth during declines of 25%
or more is critical—for example, a 33% loss
requires nearly a 50% gain to recover.

For illustrative purposes only. These are hypothetical numbers only and not based on an actual client account.

How Does Risk Assist® Work?

Risk Assist® was specifically designed with the goal to:

Capture More Gains: Seeking to take part in upward trending markets, Risk Assist® is in the “off” position in normal financial market conditions.

Mitigate Large Losses: Aiming to control the risk of loss, the Risk Assist® algorithm adds fixed-income exposure as it detects deteriorating market conditions.

Improve Client Experience and Discipline: Because Risk Assist® is transparent (e.g., financial advisors can know when portfolios are de-risked) and invested in liquid securities, the client can see the portfolio allocations and current de-risked status; thus, aiming to avoid the impulse and temptation to sell.

Risk Assist is NOT:

A timing strategy
A guarantee
“Always hedged”
Protection against acute or quick gap risk

For illustrative purposes only. Not guaranteed against loss. Graph not to scale.

Any risk management processes described herein include an effort to monitor and manage risk but should not be confused with and do not imply low risk or the ability to control risk. The illustrations show how the Risk Assist® algorithm is designed to work. Note that during periods of strong market growth, Risk Assist® strategies that are “de-risked” have a risk of underperforming traditional equity strategies.

Strategy Alerts and Tracking

Our Horizon Dashboard offers real-time email and text message alerts to keep you informed of portfolilo activity during volatile markets.

Learn about our other investment strategies.

GAIN Stage

In this stage, we seek to grow wealth while being mindful of volatility.

SPEND Stage

In this stage, we seek to preserve spending power while addressing longevity risk.

RiskAssist® is NOT A GUARANTEE against loss or declines in the value of a portfolio; it is an investment strategy that supplements a more traditional strategy by periodically modifying exposure to fixed income securities based on Horizon’s view of market conditions. While Risk Assist was designed with the goal of limiting drawdown, Horizon is not able to predict all market conditions and ensure that Risk Assist will always limit drawdown as designed. Accounts with Risk Assist® are not fully protected against all loss. Furthermore, when Risk Assist® is deployed (whether partially or entirely) to mitigate risk for an account, the account will not be fully invested in its original strategy, and accordingly during periods of strong market growth the account may underperform accounts that do not have the Risk Assist® feature. Clients may lose money. Horizon Investments makes no predictions, representations, or warranties herein as to the future performance of any portfolio. Past performance is never a guarantee of future results. There may be economic times where all investments are unfavorable and depreciate in value. Any risk management processes described herein include an effort to monitor and manage risk, but should not be confused with and do not imply low risk or the ability to control risk.