Positioning: Retail sentiment is bullish, but institutional/speculative positioning is still below peak levels. Buybacks are expected to resume, adding to demand.

Asymmetric investment returns are when the potential for gains or losses is unbalanced, often with the goal of achieving significantly higher upside potential compared to the downside risk.  shell-capital.com/asymmetric-inv…

At Shell Capital, we’ve spent over two decades building strategies that help business owners protect their wealth and stay invested with confidence.

The beauty of volatility lies in its duality: a harbinger of chaos, yet a canvas for convexity. Short it blindly, and you’re chasing ghosts; harness it wisely, and it reveals the market’s hidden rhythms. As Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

At current levels, equity investors are accepting very little income compensation for equity risk. It reflects: A belief in continued price appreciation (i.e., capital gains over income). A crowding effect into passive index exposure regardless of valuation. ASYMMETRY®

Historical Context: Yield Spiked in Crises The yield surged during the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis when prices collapsed and dividends were sticky or only slightly cut. We see similar spikes in 2020 during the pandemic crash. Today’s low yield signals no margin of

S&P 500 Dividend Yield Hits Multi-Decade Low: What It Means for Asymmetric Investors shell-capital.com/asymmetric-inv…

U.S. debt just hit $36.6 trillion. Debt-to-GDP is now 120.87%—we owe more than we produce. That’s not linear risk. It’s convex fragility. When debt compounds faster than GDP, policy options shrink and tail risk grows.

Trend-following strategies participate in directional moves and cut losses early—which truncates left-tail risk and allows for large right-tail wins.

Asymmetric hedging strategies can be engineered to create convex payoffs—defined as small, manageable losses with the potential for large, exponential gains.

Convexity is engineered. It comes from designing strategies that perform non-linearly—losing small in calm markets and gaining big in shocks.

Drawdowns matter—because they determine whether you stay invested long enough to benefit from the upside.

$SPX uptrend remains intact—but with fewer stocks participating and volatility compressed, the rally is fragile. Breadth divergence + vol compression = asymmetric risk of sharp reversal.

Today's -1.7% decline in the $SPX is outside the normal noise of the market, and volatility expansion is likely.

The VIX indicates a volatility expansion is in play for the S&P 500 and stock market as we enter August.

Where others see risk tolerance as a box to check— ASYMMETRY® sees it as a spectrum to engineer around.

ASYMMETRY® isn’t guessing direction—it’s engineering payoffs when the odds are skewed in our favor.

ASYMMETRY® isn’t about predicting the future—it’s about structuring trades to thrive in uncertainty.

ASYMMETRY® doesn’t chase returns—it controls risk to unlock exponential upside.