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Loss Aversion: Turning Your Clients’ Greatest Fear Into Their Greatest Advantage

Don’t Fear Your Clients’ Fear of Loss, Embrace It

Every advisor knows that clients fear losing money. It’s universal. It’s emotional. And it’s incredibly powerful.

But here’s the shift: That fear is not a problem. It’s an opportunity.

Loss aversion, the instinctive tendency to feel losses more acutely than gains, is more than a behavioral quirk. It’s a source of real advantage.

First, it’s a potential source of alpha. Long-term outcomes aren’t driven solely by picking winners, but by consistently avoiding meaningful losses.

Second, it strengthens advisor-client relationships. When advisors frame risk management as a return driver, clients gain confidence, stay invested through volatility, and trust the process.

The key is not to fear loss aversion. The key is to understand its benefits and channel it.

Loss Aversion: A Negative Emotion That Creates Valuable Information

Loss aversion feels negative. It drives panic, hesitation, and bad timing. It can derail even the most carefully built portfolios. But at a market level, loss aversion does something remarkable: it creates predictable distortions in expectations.

When investors subscribe to stories instead of mathematical probabilities, prices drift away from reality. When they crowd into stocks that “feel safe,” they overpay, and when they flee stocks that “feel risky,” they are willing to discount. This is where the opportunity lies.

Loss aversion, when seen through the right lens, becomes a positive, measurable signal, a clue to where expectations are inflated and where the true risks are hiding.

How the h-factor® Turns Fear Into Power

Instead of trying to pick winners, investors should aim to avoid losses, because it’s a hidden source of outperformance. The h-factor quantifies the probability of losses.

That’s the bridge. Measuring the probability of loss and avoiding it is the key.
Clients want to know what they are buying has a reasonable chance of delivering what its price implies.

The h-factor gives advisors that information by:
  • Measuring the probability a company fails to meet the expectations embedded in its stock price.
  • Identifying hidden behavioral risk and quantifying it.
  • Helping advisors steer clients away from elevated expectation risk.
In other words:
  • Loss aversion highlights the danger.
  • The h-factor is designed to show you how to avoid it .

How Advisors Can Use Loss Aversion to Build More Resilient Practices

When advisors embrace loss aversion instead of resisting it, we believe three things happen.

1. Clients become more engaged

Loss aversion is emotional.
Using the h-factor gives advisors a way to turn that emotion into a constructive conversation:

“Your fear of loss is valid. Here’s how we help you capitalize on these risks you’re worried about and avoid them.”

This doesn’t just inform the client; it benefits them.

2. Portfolios become more robust

Loss aversion pushes investors toward crowded, expensive stocks with high embedded expectations. These are exactly the stocks the h-factor warns against.

By acknowledging clients’ fears and using the h-factor to address them, advisors naturally build portfolios that are:
  • designed to avoid losers
  • less dependent on expensive story-driven companies
  • better positioned to avoid disappointment
The emotional need for safety can be combined with an actuarial approach that is designed to measure and avoid potential losses.

3. Advisor–client trust deepens

NAA’s approach is the opposite:
  • Use it as a tool for engagement.
  • When clients see that their emotional instincts have a role in the process — and that the h-factor operationalizes those instincts — trust grows. They feel understood, not corrected. Supported, not dismissed.

Loss Aversion Isn’t a Liability, It’s Leverage

Loss aversion will never disappear.

Operating within the framework of the h-factor system gives advisors something that is both emotionally intuitive and mathematically grounded.

Conclusion: Turning Fear Into Foresight

Advisors don’t need to fear their clients’ fear of loss. They can use it to strengthen the client relationship.

Loss aversion is a powerful force — in human psychology and in markets. When it’s understood, embraced, and paired with the h-factor, it becomes a strategic advantage for advisors and a source of confidence for clients.

Loss aversion points to risk.
The h-factor aims to help avoid it.
Together they build better portfolios, stronger relationships, and more resilient practices.

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Disclosures

This document is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities. We discuss general market activity, industry or sector trends, or other broad-based economic or market conditions and this should not be construed as research, securities recommendations or investment advice. Investors are urged to consult with their financial advisors before buying or selling any securities. Any forecasts or predictions are subject to high levels of uncertainty that may affect actual performance. Accordingly, all such predictions should be viewed as merely representative of a broad range of possible outcomes.

No client or prospective client should assume that any information presented in this document serves as the receipt of, or a substitute for, personalized individual advice from New Age Alpha or any other investment professional. Any charts, graphs or tables used in this fact sheet are for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as providing investment advice and should not be construed by a client or a prospective client as a solicitation to effect, or attempt to effect transactions in securities, or the rendering of personalized investment advice.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Current and future results may be lower or higher than those shown. An investor in the strategy may experience a loss. Information contained herein does not reflect the actual performance of the strategy. All research and data is simulated and should not be considered indicative of the skill of New Age Alpha. You cannot invest directly in an index. This presentation does not include the deduction of any fees and expenses because an index does not have any such fees or expenses, such as management fees or transactions costs. Investments in securities will generally include fees and expenses that will decrease investment returns. The performance results reflect the reinvestment of dividends and interest.

Human FactorTM “h-factorTM” scores measure the probability that, according to the Human Factor algorithm, a company cannot deliver the growth necessary to support its stock price and are not alone a recommendation about how to invest. The h-factor is a risk that comes from humans interpreting vague or ambiguous information in a systematically incorrect way. We believe that the h-factor causes stocks to be mispriced. We measure how the h-factor affects stock prices to identify which stocks are over or underpriced. We apply our methodology to over 4000 stocks and global indexes to identify a risk that impacts stock prices and is caused by human behavior. Investments not included in the h-factor tool may have characteristics similar or superior to those being analyzed. The accuracy of the h-factor is materially reliant on the integrity of the information utilized in the calculations, including any assumptions and or interpretations made by the user about the data. Data discrepancies, user assumptions, and data input by user can all contribute to differing outcomes. The underlying assumptions and processes presented herein are subject to change. Furthermore, any h-factor score referenced herein is a snapshot taken at a particular point in time and any analysis or information contained in such score is outdated and should not be relied upon as investment advice as such information may have materially changed since publication.


TRADEMARKS

All New Age Alpha trademarks are owned by New Age Alpha LLC. All other company or product names mentioned herein, including S&P®, Dow Jones®, and GICS are the property of their respective owners and should not be deemed to be an endorsement of any New Age Alpha product, portfolio or strategy. S&P® is a registered trademark of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC ("SPFS").

THIRD PARTY SOURCES

Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. It has been prepared solely for informational purposes on an “as is” basis and New Age Alpha does not make any warranty or representation regarding the information. Investors should be aware of the risks associated with data sources and quantitative processes used in our investment management process. Errors may exist in data acquired from third party vendors.

DEFINITIONS

The S&P 500 Index is an unmanaged market capitalization weighted index of 500 of the largest capitalized U.S. domiciled companies. The Leading Economic Index (LEI), is an index published monthly by The Conference Board. It is used to predict the direction of global economic movements in future months. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or the ‘VIX’ is a measure of the expected volatility of the US stock market. Market momentum is the rate at which the price of a security or market is changing and is measured using the S&P 500 Total Return Index. The NAA U.S. Large-Cap Core Index consists of 100 stocks selected by the New Age Alpha’s h-factor methodology from the S&P 500 Index and is calculated and published by S&P Dow Jones Indices. The NAA Allocation Index dynamically adjusts its allocation between equity, debt, and 100% cash, and is calculated and published by S&P Dow Jones Indices. The NAA USD High Yield Corporate Bond Index consists of 100 bonds selected by New Age Alpha’s h-factor methodology from the S&P Global USD High Yield Corporate Bond Index and is calculated and published by S&P Dow Jones Indices. The S&P U.S. Treasury Bond Current 2-Year Index is a one-security index comprising the most recently issued 2-year U.S. Treasury note or bond. The iBoxx USD Liquid Investment Grade Index consists of liquid USD investment grade bonds, which provide a balanced representation of the USD liquid investment grade corporate bond universe.



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