“More than a quarter century ago, it became clear to me that traditional buy-and-hold strategies, asset allocation, diversification, and rebalancing were not enough to truly protect clients during significant market declines.
The bear markets and corrections of the early 2000s reinforced that lesson. Even portfolios built on Modern Portfolio Theory suffered meaningful losses, underscoring the need for a more active approach to managing changing market conditions.
That realization shaped who we are today: a shepherd-minded company committed to actively managing risk, protecting and enhancing our clients’ financial security, and helping them pursue their long-term goals.”
To equip institutions, RIAs, and advisors with differentiated, protection-first investment solutions designed to strengthen long-term outcomes, preserve capital through difficult markets, and enable investors with the potential to compound wealth with greater discipline.
The SHEP Advantage is a key point of differentiation, combining our powerful SHEP technology platform with a proprietary SHEP Edge algorithm. Together, they provide a disciplined, rules-based approach designed to respond to changing market conditions—prioritizing protection while seeking opportunities to compound shares over time.
The SHEP Edge is our proprietary trading algorithm, powered by 63 proprietary risk and opportunity metrics. It serves as the core decision engine across SHEP model portfolios and investment strategies, responding to changing market conditions to guide decisions. The objective is to manage downside risk while seeking opportunities to enhance long-term performance.
We partner with institutions, RIAs, and advisors by providing access to SHEP® Advantage portfolios, custom models, and targeted sleeves. Firms may implement through Managed Models via a TAMP or SMA sub-advisory relationship on their custodial platform, or through Model Services via the SHEP® Portal. We may also support client-sponsored ETFs.
We uphold the highest standards of moral character and integrity; operating with clear transparency and candor.
We are fully devoted to acting in your clients and our employees’ best interest above all.
We are committed to continuous improvement and delivering best-in-class performance.
We know that trust is earned not just through verbal platitudes. We understand that gaining trust through delivering results is about putting your clients’ best interests and safety above all.
Success starts with envisioning a well-defined destination. We consider our efforts an achievement when your clients realize financial freedom.
The Stone Wall Financial Team has many decades of experience encompassing technology, securities analysis, investment strategy, wealth management, private banking, risk management, regulatory compliance and data & analytics.
President, CEO
Partner, Market Strategy
Chief Compliance Officer
Partner, General Counsel
Director of National Sales
Senior Data Analyst
We have assembled a dynamic team of talented and innovative experts in their respective fields: technology, data science & analytics, artificial intelligence, marketing and regulatory compliance. Their collective insights have enabled SHEP product development and our adoption of evolving technology in pursuit of delivering best-in-class risk-adjusted returns.
Data Scientist, A.I.
IT Architectural Design
Platform Engineering Lead
Product Delivery Lead
Marketing & Distribution
Regulatory Compliance
Stone Wall Financial continues to grow a meaningful network of partners and other resources capable of contributing to our development and delivery of SHEP solutions.
Stone Wall Financial is a Registered Investment Adviser firm, founded by partners who collectively represent many decades of industry experience in technology, risk management, private wealth management, brokerage, private banking, financial planning, and securities analysis. Our firm delivers a full suite of our SHEP solutions as a Sub-Adviser to investment advisers, registered and exempt investment companies.
Our mission drives everything we do. We believe trust is earned by delivering results. Through partnerships with institutions and financial professionals, we make SHEP® solutions accessible across a variety of channels—helping individual investors pursue greater financial security through tactical strategies designed to manage downside risk and seek enhanced long-term performance.
SHEP® combines a robust technology platform with the proprietary SHEP Edge to help manage downside risk during major market downturns and guide disciplined, rules-based reentry decisions using data-driven signals.
SHEP® applies the use of advanced technical analysis to construct and manage portfolios tailored to individual client objectives. Its quantitative, rules-based technology integrates with custodial platforms to support consistent implementation, while each security is individually optimized to seek protection and performance across changing market conditions.
SHEP® combines proprietary algorithms with real-time data analysis to identify trading opportunities and emerging market risks. Its rules-based process is designed to respond proactively to changing conditions, seeking to protect portfolios during significant declines while pursuing enhanced long-term performance.
We use a combination of AI augmented machine learning, statistical models, and historical data to optimize and continuously refine our SHEP algorithms. This helps to ensure that our trading decisions are based on the most accurate and up-to-date information.
Security is a top priority. We employ state-of-the-art encryption, multi-factor authentication, and other security measures to protect our platform and ensure that our transmissions to manage our SHEP Advantage data transmissions are secure.
Presently, our SHEP platform is proprietary and not available as a subscription service. Stone Wall Financial operates as a Sub-Adviser, ready to partner with institutions and their financial professionals to provide access to our full suite of SHEP solutions.
Our use of Augmented Intelligence and machine learning helps automate the parameter-tuning process within advanced algorithmic models such as the SHEP Edge. This enables more efficient and consistent optimization of SHEP securities and models, while reducing the potential for human error. The result is a more disciplined modeling process designed to improve the accuracy and adaptability of the system’s analytical signals.
Augmented Intelligence is capable of processing vast amounts of data at high speeds, identifying complex patterns and trends that may not be apparent to human analysts. The ability to analyze and learn from large datasets enables Augmented Intelligence features to make more accurate and timely predictions about future market movements.
The most notable example is how we leverage Augmented Intelligence machine learning in our portfolio optimization strategy. By using machine learning with our rules-based, data driven algorithms we are able to better analyze historical data and market conditions. Our research has shown great potential for producing significant increases in portfolio returns while minimizing risk. For this reason, our SHEP models will periodically recycle our optimization process. Doing so increases our confidence that these models are better positioned for the opportunity to outperform other traditional methods.
Yes, the platform has undergone extensive and rigorous testing using over 30 years of historical market data. We confidently conclude that the accuracy in displayed hypothetical performances sourced from the SHEP platform has undergone a thorough examination by a highly credible third-party resource; concluding that the SHEP Model is logically constructed, internally consistent, and is, in all material respects, arithmetically accurate in terms of its formulae, algorithms, calculations and performance results.
CLICK HERE to review the SHEP Model Audit: Findings Report by BDO.
We understand and embrace our duty as a fiduciary. With great diligence, we evaluated SHEP’s responses across many market conditions using both in-sample and out-of-sample data.
In-sample testing allowed us to “train” our SHEP Models to optimize their ability to identifying patterns and relationships within the historical data. This ensures that SHEP Models performed well under “known conditions.”
Out-of-sample testing, most critically, enables us to evaluate the Model’s performance with “unseen data.” By this measure, we are able to realistically conclude, by the measure of SHEP’s robust and predictive nature in real-world scenarios, how SHEP Models are capable of delivering in the future.
Out-of-sample testing is an important part of our model-development process because it evaluates how well a model generalizes when presented with new data that was not used during training. This helps identify whether the model has become overly dependent on historical patterns—a condition known as overfitting.
Overfitting occurs when a machine learning model fits its training data too closely, capturing patterns or relationships that may not persist in new data. By testing SHEP® Models against unseen data, we can evaluate whether their signals and responses remain consistent beyond the data used to develop them.
Conducting out-of-sample testing helps demonstrate that SHEP® strategies are not simply tailored to historical data, but are designed to generalize across changing market conditions and provide meaningful signals when applied to new, unseen data.
We use a variety of performance metrics, Sharpe ratio, maximum drawdown, Beta, Alpha, annualized returns, trading analytics and tax leakage, to evaluate our models. These metrics provide a comprehensive view of our SHEP models’ hypothetical results in risk-adjusted returns, stability, and overall effectiveness in different market environments, as measured against its relative benchmarks.
While consistently timing the market’s exact highs and lows is difficult, historical market data can provide valuable signals about changing market conditions. By combining momentum, trend analysis, and other technical indicators, SHEP® evaluates these signals to identify potential entry and exit opportunities. The objective is not to predict the market’s exact turning points, but to use data-driven analysis to make informed, rules-based decisions as market conditions evolve.
Our model strategies are designed to lead with protection, with a deliberate focus on managing and mitigating risk as market conditions deteriorate. While trading frequency varies across SHEP®-optimized securities, many may go months without a single trade, reflecting our focus on purposeful rather than excessive trading.
Our objective is to help keep clients on the “right side of the market” by combining diversification and asset allocation with disciplined risk management. Rather than relying solely on market timing, SHEP® uses the SHEP Edge to evaluate changing market conditions and guide systematic reentry decisions.
Our research indicates that this approach may enhance the potential for improved long-term returns while managing risk. The SHEP Edge is designed to be robust and adaptable, responding to evolving market conditions through a disciplined, rules-based process rather than relying on subjective timing decisions.
One of the key advantages of algorithmic trading is its ability to apply defined, data-driven rules consistently. By following a systematic decision-making process, SHEP helps reduce the influence of emotional and behavioral biases that can affect discretionary investment decisions.
SHEP’s systematic approach to market timing is not foolproof, nor is it intended to predict every market movement. Rather, it adds a disciplined layer of quantitative analysis to the investment decision-making process, helping the system respond consistently as market conditions change.
With Stone Wall Financial serving as Sub-Adviser, your firm retains the client relationship and primary advisory responsibility. You may add or remove client accounts from SHEP® Advantage or Custom solutions in accordance with your own advisory process.
For Managed Models, Stone Wall manages the selected SHEP® models and transmits model changes through the agreed TAMP, SMA, or custodial workflow for implementation within participating accounts. For Model Services, Stone Wall delivers models, signals, and supporting analytics through the SHEP® Portal, while your firm retains custody, discretion, and trade execution within its own investment architecture.