Investment and Performance Disclosures
Starting Index is model research. It is not individualized investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice.
Starting Index publishes model research, performance records, allocations, reports, and related tools. It does not provide services as a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, custodian, or trade execution provider, and it does not make individualized recommendations based on a subscriber's full financial situation.
Subscribers are responsible for deciding whether any profile, order sheet, or defensive signal fits their own objectives, risk tolerance, tax situation, account type, and trading constraints. Consult a qualified financial, tax, legal, or investment professional before acting on model information.
No Guaranteed Outcome
Model returns, live records, backtests, annual return charts, and comparisons to SPY are informational. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and any strategy can lose money.
Backtests use historical assumptions and may not reflect real-world execution, taxes, liquidity, slippage, dividends, corporate actions, missed data, provider revisions, or account-specific restrictions.
Benchmark Basis
SPY comparisons on the public performance pages use the benchmark basis identified in the published artifacts. The benchmark is shown over the same date range as the paired platform, profile, or research value so excess return means model return minus SPY return for that same window. Older artifacts may use a different basis than newer artifacts, so the displayed source record should be reviewed alongside the return values.
Execution Risk
Subscribers who choose to trade model outputs are responsible for order timing, price, fills, cash settlement, tax treatment, broker limitations, and suitability. Starting Index does not custody assets or guarantee execution.
Conflicts and Review
The operator may personally hold securities that appear in the model. Starting Index maintains publication discipline and conflict-awareness procedures, but subscribers should assume that the operator may have personal exposure to model names or related market instruments.
Monthly model profiles are generated and timestamped before operator implementation decisions are made. The operator personal account workflow is intended to follow the same next-trading-session cadence after the month-end publication, currently targeted around 5:00pm ET. Professional and Business subscribers may use API access to retrieve model publications in a more automated workflow, subject to their own systems, broker rules, and execution decisions.
Account type can affect implementation timing. Retirement accounts, HSAs, cash-only accounts, or other restricted accounts may require available settled cash before buy orders can be placed. Settlement timing can vary by broker, account type, instrument, and order workflow.
The operator may also use Starting Index model outputs in personal retirement or brokerage accounts. This personal use does not make the publication individualized advice for subscribers, and subscribers remain responsible for deciding whether any model profile is appropriate for their own circumstances.