J. Lyons Fund Management, Inc.

The firm provides discretionary portfolio management primarily to individual clients, including high-net-worth individuals, and to pension and profit-sharing plans; as of December 31, 2022 it reported 20 clients with about $5.1 million in discretionary assets under management. In addition to managed accounts invested in mutual funds, ETFs and equities, the firm offers a managed 401(k) service and two subscription products that deliver non-personalized market guidance for retirement-plan investors.

Investment decisions are driven by a proprietary risk management and market-timing model in continuous use since the late 1970s, combined with technical analysis and a relative-strength fund selection process; the firm describes using inverse-moving instruments at times to hedge or seek gains in declining markets. Accounts are managed on a discretionary basis with monthly monitoring and an emphasis on attempting to limit downside risk through the timing overlay rather than by allocating to traditional conservative vehicles.

Compared with many peers, the firm is small and long-established and documents explicit use of active market timing, a feature that is uncommon among similar supported advisers. It also describes arrangements to allocate client assets to third-party managers as part of a manager-of-managers approach and maintains two subscription publications for plan participants and other investors, which are atypical service offerings for a firm of this size.