I/O Fund Reports 210% Cumulative Return — Ranking Above Wall Street’s Best

Posted on March 31, 2025June 30, 2026 by io-fund

In 2024, I/O Fund posted a 35% return, significantly outperforming popular tech ETFs, which recorded an 8% return over the same period. On a cumulative basis, the results translate to a remarkable 219% outperformance compared to competing tech portfolios.

The I/O Fund outperformed the S&P 500 by 109% and outperformed the Nasdaq-100 by 82%.
In 2024, the I/O Fund returned 35%, outperforming the S&P 500 by 11% and the Nasdaq-100 by 10%.
Since inception, the I/O Fund has maintained a lead of up to 219% over institutional technology portfolios.

If you had invested $10,000 with the I/O Fund's picks versus other all-tech portfolios at inception, the difference would be a portfolio value of $31,026 with IOF versus $9,737 with institutional tech-focused portfolios. The difference in value is 219%.

I/O Fund Surpasses Wall Street’s Most Successful Firms

The I/O Fund actively manages risk through hedging and raising cash, therefore, the closest comparison in terms of style would be hedge funds. Our current performance since inception places us as one of the top-performing actively managed portfolios in the world, with an annualized return of 27.6% since May of 2020. Our ranking would be #2 in the United States, ahead of famous fund managers such as Pershing Square, Tiger Global and Citadel.

Source: Levelfields and ChartartisanLevelfields and Chartartisan

I/O Fund is a leading portfolio specializing in tech stocks – if we were a Hedge Fund, our performance would be ranked #2 in the US. We have consistently outperformed some of the biggest hedge funds like Pershing Square, Tiger Global Management, and Citadel.

Even when considering leveraged ETFs, which tend to use future contracts to double the returns (and losses) of the underlying index, we would still place in the top 10 since our inception. This is remarkable considering SPX and the Nasdaq-100 had strong back-to-back annual performances.

Notably, leveraged ETFs are typically used as trading vehicles rather than as long investments. Considering they utilize future contracts, the longer they are held the more they deviate from their expected result. Therefore, Ark is the closest competitor to what we offer as an actively managed all-tech portfolio. As depicted in the chart above, our lead over Ark is 219%.

I/O Fund’s cumulative returns of 210% notably outperformed some of the most popular tech stocks ETFs like XLK by 65%. Source: YCharts and InsiderMonkeyYCharts and InsiderMonkey

Further, when we combine the entire universe of ETFs with Mutual Funds, which is another long option for investors yet are not exclusive to tech nor do they hedge, we would rank #8.

The above list shows that I/O Fund is a top-performing tech portfolio with only Fidelity ranking higher in cumulative returns among tech-focused ETFs and mutual funds. Source: YCharts and InsiderMonkeyamong tech-focused ETFs and mutual funds. Source: YCharts and InsiderMonkey

When you consider these portfolios have billions of assets under managementbillions of assets under management and are managed by those considered to be the best investors in the worldthe best investors in the world, we feel what we offer is of immense value.

2024 was the Year of Consistency:

It has been a wild ride; yet we have strived for consistency. In 2024, we had ten positions outperform the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500. This follows seven positions beating the broad indexes last year in 2023.

Although we reserve the complete list for our paid members, below are a few highlights we can share with you:

We held Nvidia as a top position and then trimmed ¼ of the position on June 13th with SMH topping in July. We further discussed our strategy to reduce exposure to AI semis in Q3 and Q4, spotting sector-wide weakness, which helped to minimize losses.
We kept Bitcoin as a top 3 allocation while providing 7 buy alerts, all of which closed the year up 50%+.
Our combined realized returns on an AI hypergrowth stocks was 243% while utilizing risk management to sidestep volatility.
We also captured an outsized 87% return on cybersecurity stock, yet closed the position before the stock saw a volatile drawdown.
We closed a crypto position for a quick 99% gain.
Netflix outperformed the Nasdaq in 2024 and was closed for 164% realized gain in 2024

Nvidia +172%

Leading up to the release of the Hopper GPUs, we were net buyers of Nvidia in 2021 through early 2023. On average, it was held as a 15% position throughout 2022 – 2023. As we moved into 2024, Nvidia was allowed to exceed this allocation to become our first ever 20% position. We began taking heavy gains in the $130 – $140 region. Today, we are waiting for better prices to begin accumulating again.

Bitcoin +121%

We have been systematically accumulating Bitcoin since early 2023. In 2024, we issued seven buy alerts, all of which closed the year up more than 50%. We also began taking significant gains in our Bitcoin position between $80,000 – $106,000.

Super Micro +243%

Super Micro was a high conviction play in 2023, which we closed for a sizable gain around the 2024 top. We attempted to re-establish a small position in mid-2024, but decided to close that attempt for a loss due to the accounting issues SMCI was facing.

Netflix +164%

NFLX was a high conviction stock that we began accumulating at the same moment that Wall Street’s best, such as Bill Ackman, were closing their positions. We felt the Street had this stock wrong. With multiple tactical buys, the average opening price to the average closing price came out to a 164% realized gain in less than 2 years. The decision to close it was based on a combination of fundamental issues as well as technical targets being reached.

Crypto Altcoin +99%

While Bitcoin was clearly in a strong uptrend, we decided to play the momentum in a crypto altcoin. With an opening average cost basis and closing average cost basis in 2024, we logged a relatively quick 99% in less than a year.

Cybersecurity Stock +87%

We opened a position in a cybersecurity stock in early 2023 and began taking gains in early 2024. We ended up closing the entire position for a realized gain of 87%, just before the stock fell 41% from a streak of bad news. We were early to exit due to the fundamentals team listening closely to the earnings call and sensing weakness.

📢 You can read our full press release here: “I/O Fund Dominates Tech Sector with a Staggering 210% Cumulative Return in Less than 5 Years” ou can read our full press release here: “I/O Fund Dominates Tech Sector with a Staggering 210% Cumulative Return in Less than 5 Years” /O Fund Dominates Tech Sector with a Staggering 210% Cumulative Return in Less than 5 Years” 📈 Read the Full Press Release

Key Points on How the I/O Fund is Different

Real-time trade alerts are sent to our members the minute we decide to buy, sell, trim or add to a stock. For those who may not be aware, this is extremely challenging to do as it combines the two most advanced forms of portfolio management.

One of the most advanced forms of portfolio management is real-time trade alerts. This places immense pressure on a portfolio manager as the stakes are high to record what you do every second in real-time. To voluntarily choose to have the highest level of accountability in retail is nearly unheard of, yet registered fund managers are required to do this and file their stock trades.
Logging trades in real-time also places immense pressure on the analysts at the I/O Fund, as well, who are not allowed to simply choose a stock but must also determine the allocation for the stock. After recommending a stock, the analysts must help the portfolio manager actively manage the position, which can change at any time.
Hedging up to 100% of a portfolio is also a large psychological hurdle, and traditionally a risky one. Markets spend the vast majority of their history in uptrends, for one. Secondly, the amount you can lose on a short is literally infinite, to where one’s downside risk is capped at 0 on the long side. Although hedging must be reviewed with each Member’s financial advisor, many of our members simply use the information as a critical risk-on and risk-off signal.

These are rare offerings in stock investing research. However, since day one – we refused to publish reports without risk management.

We recently published an article “The Harsh Truth: Retail Investors Take the Brunt of Wall Street Losses” to illustrate why retail investors should not accept a low standard when choosing a stock research site.

There is a reason most services do not provide this level of transparency and activity. The more granularity that is offered, the more skill is required. The stakes are much higher when what you do is recorded the minute the action is taken, but overall, having the highest level of accountability possible has made the I/O Fund much sharper investors.

Verified Returns

In addition to a lack of risk management tools, I believe a lack of verified returns in the retail space contributes to the losses this investor type experiences. Smart money is careful about who they consider a good investor — they do not take someone’s word they are a good investor; they make the investors or firms they follow prove it. Every single hedge fund must report their returns, which reduces the chances of posturing.

How the I/O Fund Sets a High Bar for Accountability

Over the past few years, the I/O Fund has invested over $175,000 into accountability and transparency for our members. When we launched in July of 2019, for the first year or so, we used a forum hosted by Tribe for our trade alerts for a cost of about $10,000 per year, but by January of 2021, we had migrated to SMS and email tools that were the least likely to experience an outage for our real-time trade alerts (Twilio and Mailchimp). This costs us $30,000 to $40,000 per year, depending on our trading frequency.

In addition to this, we use an auditor from a large firm in San Francisco to mathematically review and verify the performance of our I/O Fund portfolio trading account and crypto account. The process is quite extensive, and it takes up to four months to complete. This costs $4,500 per audit and we’ve completed six audits for a total of $27,000 spent on this process. Accountability is expensive but we feel it’s worth it.

Conclusion:

When I founded the I/O Fund in 2019, it began as an experiment — one that, candidly, I was unsure would succeed. Upon speaking to mentors and others in the field, I was urged to go to the institutional side and to "not bother with retail." This is because institutions pay a higher price for research and are not as emotional during drawdowns. But therein lies the pain point I was trying to solve — which is that retail is offered breadcrumbs — such as stock research that does not provide the most important part of a portfolio (trades or allocations), boastful claims of returns with no accountability plus an utter lack of risk management tools. To worsen the matter, popular tech ETFs greatly underperform the broader indexes — leaving little to no options for retail to participate in the highly rewarding tech sector.

In sharp contrast to other research sites, the I/O Fund logs every trade in real-time, our portfolio is independently verified by an accounting firm in San Francisco, and our deep dive research is early and actionable — proven to identify some of the market's biggest winners years before the Street. In tech, the rubber meets the road with risk management, which our firm has championed since day one with technical analysis, weekly 1 hour webinars that focus entirely on risk management, and even hedging up to 100% of the portfolio to offer clear indications of whether the market is risk-on or risk-off.

I am pleased to say the results have truly shattered my expectations.

Please note: The I/O Fund conducts research and draws conclusions for the Fund’s positions. We then share that information with our readers. This is not a guarantee of a stock’s performance. Please consult your personal financial advisor before buying any stock in the companies mentioned in this analysis.

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I/O Fund Catapults to 131% Cumulative Performance Due to Leading AI Allocation: Official Press Release

Posted on April 3, 2024June 30, 2026 by io-fund

Actively managed portfolio and research site announces triple-digit returns over a four-year period.

I/O Fund, a tech research site that actively manages a real-time portfolio, announces returns of 57% in 2023 with a cumulative return of 131% since inception. This compares to popular tech ETFs that have cumulative returns of (-10%) in the same time period for an outperformance of 141% in less than four years.

In 2023, the I/O Fund had seven positions beat the Nasdaq-100. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Winners’ Circle ranking of hedge funds, a performance of 57% would hypothetically rank the I/O Fund portfolio as #4 across 1,191 funds.

Leading AI Allocation Drives Impressive Cumulative Returns

Since its inception, the I/O Fund has rivaled and exceeded Wall Street’s best firms. A few highlights of the I/O Fund’s performance include:

The I/O Fund’s cumulative returns since inception of 131% compared to popular tech ETFs at (-10%) with a relative outperformance of 141% in less than four years.
The I/O Fund’s cumulative returns outperformed the Nasdaq-100 by 49% and outperformed the S&P 500 by 68%.
Since inception, the I/O Fund has a lead over institutional technology portfolios by as much as 157%.
In 2021-2022 we issued 9 buy alerts for Nvidia with the lowest at $108.51 on October 13th, 2022 for gains of up to 775% in eighteen months.

Impeccable timing on Nvidia and other AI stocks led to the I/O Fund having one of the highest allocations to AI on record at 45%. Previously, our firm was early to cloud in 2019, then rotated into AI in 2022.

Our high allocation to AI of 45% in 2023 was timely as it allowed us to beat Wall Street to the explosive trend of AI. Nvidia was a strong call by our firm and was our largest position at the time of its knockout report. Most importantly, our track record places us as a front runner within this trend, and we are confident we will find additional winners. We exited the year with an AI allocation of 52%.

The I/O Fund began as an experiment to see if a team of retail investors can beat Wall Street. We are setting out to answer the million-dollar or billion-dollar question, which is how to safely participate in tech while limiting the downside. We do not believe this question has been truly answered. Hedge fund managers often pick one tech stock or a few tech stocks and place them alongside a diversified portfolio as a means of limiting the downside. However, tech is the world’s most valuable industry – no other industry offers you the opportunity for life-changing gains repeatedly, year after year. Therefore, diversifying away from tech certainly helps protect the downside but it greatly limits the upside, as well.

That leads to our mission, which is to offer an all-tech portfolio that participates in the upside yet aims to limit the downside. That’s how we hope to set our portfolio apart. Our comparison chart proves we are off to a great start in answering this problem.

These results were independently audited by an accounting firm in San Francisco. More details can be found on the I/O Fund website.

If you had invested $10,000 with the I/O Fund’s picks versus other all-tech portfolio at inception, the difference would be a portfolio value of $23,052 with IOF versus $8,982 with institutional tech-focused portfolio. The difference in value is 157%.

You can read the official Business Wire press release below. A copy of the verified procedures and the verified performance percentage is shared with I/O Fund customers in the paywall article “2023 Audited Returns.” To become a customer of the I/O Fund, learn more here.2023 Audited Returns.” To become a customer of the I/O Fund, learn more here.

Full Press Release from BusinessWire:

Published March 27th, 2024

The I/O Fund grew to prominence in 2023 due to famously calling Nvidia an AI stock in 2018 and repeating the thesis over 25 times including Tier 1 media appearances. In 2021, the firm publicly stated that Nvidia would surpass Apple to become the world’s most valuable company. At the time, this was inconceivable.

Since its inception, the I/O Fund has rivaled and exceeded Wall Street’s best firms.

The I/O Fund’s cumulative returns since inception of 131% compared to popular tech ETFs at (-10%) with a relative outperformance of 141% in less than four years.
The I/O Fund’s cumulative returns outperformed the Nasdaq-100 by 49% and outperformed the S&P 500 by 68%.
Since inception, the I/O Fund has a lead over institutional technology portfolios by as much as 157%.

These results were independently audited by an accounting firm in San Francisco. More details can be found on the I/O Fund website.

“We are unrivaled when it comes to choosing artificial intelligence winners. Nvidia was our highest allocation, yet there are many other AI winners the I/O Fund is poised to capture. We beat Wall Street to an explosive moment for AI and we plan to beat Wall Street again to other AI leaders,” said Beth Kindig, CEO and Lead Tech Analyst.

Lead Tech Analyst, Beth Kindig, was dubbed “Queen of Nvidia” by Fox Business News when she stated on live TV that her firm was sticking with Nvidia after the company reported a $2.5 billion revenue miss in 2022.

Kindig’s firm sent out 9 trade alerts under $200 for Nvidia in 2021 and 2022 with one trade alert as low as $108.51 on October 13th, 2022 for gains of up to 775% in under eighteen months. Due to Kindig’s unique approach to tech analysis, the portfolio holds a handful of stocks she believes will ultimately become large AI winners.

Impeccable timing on Nvidia and other AI stocks led to the I/O Fund having one of the highest allocations to AI on record at 45%. Previously, the firm was early to cloud in 2019, then rotated into AI in 2022.

“We were early to Nvidia’s AI story and we are confident we will be a frontrunner in finding the next big AI stock. The AI trend is the best investment opportunity of our lifetime, and we offer an invaluable resource to those who want to capture it,” said Beth Kindig, CEO and Lead Tech Analyst.

In 2023, the I/O Fund had five positions with returns over 100% and seven positions beat the Nasdaq-100.

The I/O Fund portfolio manager, Knox Ridley, uses risk management tools such as intermarket analysis, Elliott Wave and Gann theory to increase the resiliency of the portfolio returns compared to a buy-and-hold approach.

“The million-dollar or even billion-dollar question that has yet to be answered is how to not simply participate in tech, which anyone can do, but rather how to safely participate in tech. The I/O Fund set out to be the first to answer this question, which is why our returns significantly outperform buy-and-hold strategies,” said Knox Ridley, Portfolio Manager.

In 2022, the I/O Fund partnered with Vincent Duchaine of WealthUmbrella to develop an automated hedging signal. Duchaine is an A.I. and Machine Learning University Professor who worked with Ridley to create an automated risk-on/risk-off signal for retail investors. The hedge is the primary tool the I/O Fund uses to hold onto gains from AI and other profitable tech trends irrespective of a broader selloff.

Ridley and Duchaine provide exceptional analysis for crypto markets including Bitcoin. The duo published analysis that was prescient in identifying the bottom in 2022 at $16,500 after identifying the previous top in 2021 at around $58,000.

The I/O Fund hires an independent accounting firm to conduct its periodic audits. It reviewed statements from January 1st, 2023 through December 31st, 2023 from the company’s brokerage and blockchain accounts and found no discrepancies.

For more information, including pricing plans for the I/O Fund’s research, visit their website at https://io-fund.com. Premium members access a portfolio of 10+ positions, webinars, institutional-level research, real-time trade notifications and more. The firm also offers a free weekly newsletter.

Commitment to Transparency and Accountability

At the heart of I/O Fund, we believe that transparency is key to our success over the last few years. We keep our members in the loop with real-time trade alerts and audited performance reviews. This raises the bar on accountability as no other retail site goes to these lengths by offering an actively managed and transparent portfolio.

Over the past three years, the I/O Fund has invested over $165,000 into accountability and transparency for our members. When we launched in July of 2019, for the first year or so, we used a forum hosted by Tribe for our trade alerts. By January of 2021, we had migrated to SMS and email tools that were the least likely to experience an outage for our real-time trade alerts. This costs us $30,000 to $40,000 per year, depending on our trading frequency.

In addition to this, we use an auditor from a large firm in San Francisco to mathematically review and verify the performance of our I/O Fund portfolio trading account and crypto account. The process is quite extensive and it takes up to four months to complete. This costs $4,500 per audit and we’ve completed five audits for a total of $22,500 spent on this process.

Premium members can access the verified procedures, verified performance and engagement letter behind our paywall in the article “2023 Full Year Audited Returns.”

I/O Fund Analyst, Beth Kindig, recently wrote “The Importance of Verified Returns and Risk Management for Retail Investors” which identifies three key reasons retail tends to underperform professional investors. The I/O Fund has worked diligently and made sizable investments to empower retail investors by addressing these issues which include automation, risk management tools and being the only retail firm to offer a verified performance.

The I/O Fund Experiment: Empowering Retail Investors

The I/O Fund's mission since inception is to help retail investors beat Wall Street in the competitive and complex tech sector. Our experiment in providing institutional-level research and tools to retail investors has been successful since we first launched in 2019. This includes having a cloud-focused portfolio in 2020, beating our other all-tech portfolios in the tough years of 2021 and 2022, and pivoting to a high AI allocation well ahead of 2023, which helped us triple our performance on a cumulative basis.

If you are ready to optimize your investment strategies, join the I/O Fund Community and experience the advantages of accountability, innovation, and exceptional performance. Subscribe to our premium analysis service to access real-time trade alerts, weekly webinars that review our positions plus the broad market, a forum to connect with other skillful investors, and deep dive research from a Silicon Valley trained analyst who is frequently in Tier 1 media. Learn about our Premium Services here or Explore Pricing Options here.

Official Press Release: I/O Fund’s Cumulative Returns Double the Nasdaq Following a Tough 2022

Posted on March 30, 2023June 30, 2026 by io-fund

Actively managed portfolio and research site announces its largest cumulative lead over institutional all-tech portfolios. The I/O Fund defies a challenging market, outperforming peers and providing innovative tools to level the playing field for retail investors.

I/O Fund, a tech research site that actively manages a real time portfolio, announces a cumulative return of 46.92% since inception versus the Nasdaq-100’s 18.65% return during the same time period.

Impressive Performance in a Challenging Year for Tech (and the Market as a Whole)

A few important highlights of the I/O Fund’s performance include:

Cumulative return of 46.92% since inception, compared to the Nasdaq-100’s 18.65% return during the same time period
More than doubled the Nasdaq since 2020 with an outperformance of 28.27%
2022 performance of (-38.8%), rivaling the Nasdaq-100 performance of (-32.9%)
Relative outperformance in 2022 surpassing institutional all-tech portfolios by as much as 85%
Since inception, the I/O Fund has a lead over institutional technology portfolios by as much as 174% including those who manage billions of assets under management (AuM)

Typically, in a risk-off environment, the indexes are known to protect investors to the downside. It also helps to gauge the overall cost of owning tech in a historic year for losses in the stock market. Meaning, even the most conservative tech investors lost (32.9%) in 2022, defined by those that hold their exposure to NDX through QQQ.

Notably, losses are geometric in nature, so a portfolio that is down (67%) has to go up 85% to catch up with our 2022 performance of (38.8%). Since inception, to catch up with the I/O Fund compared to other all-tech portfolios, you’d have to make up 174%.

Our 2022 relative outperformance followed an outperformance in 2021, with gains of 11.4% compared to many tech funds that were down (23%) or more. On a cumulative basis, we currently have the largest lead over Ark that we’ve ever had since inception.

Ark is not the only all-tech portfolio peer that we are outperforming on a cumulative basis. The portfolios listed below are managed by highly regarded portfolio managers, are reserved for high-wealth individuals only, and have billions of assets under management (AuM).

Pictured above: If you had invested $10,000 with the I/O Fund's picks versus other all-tech portfolios at inception, the difference would be a portfolio value of $14,692 with IOF versus $5,358 with institutional tech-focused portfolios. The difference in value is 174%.

You can read the official Business Wire press release here. A copy of the auditor’s engagement letter including verified procedures and the verified performance percentage is shared with I/O Fund customers in the paywall article “2022 Audited Returns.” To become a customer of the I/O Fund, learn more here.here. A copy of the auditor’s engagement letter including verified procedures and the verified performance percentage is shared with I/O Fund customers in the paywall article “2022 Audited Returns.” To become a customer of the I/O Fund, learn more here.

How the I/O Fund was Able to Rival the Nasdaq During a Historic Bear Market for Tech

Our firm is well-known for carefully choosing allocations as an important risk management tool. Lead Tech Analyst, Beth Kindig, has over a decade of experience analyzing tech. Her deep dive research helped the firm build its highest allocations in the complex semiconductor industry, which was the best performing sector in tech in 2021 and 2022.

Kindig has made contrarian, bullish calls on Nvidia in her free newsletter. Her analysis led to the I/O Fund buying at the October low for a 35% gain by year end, which has turned into more than 140% gains. Year-to-date, Nvidia is the best performing S&P 500 stock on the market, and remains the I/O Fund’s top position. Notably, the firm takes gains throughout the year on their positions and issues real-time trade alerts to this effect.

“We stayed focused and pivoted to hedging in April which helped us stage a strong comeback. In addition to hedging, we built a defensive tech portfolio that included two of the tech industry’s leading stocks. We held these winners at some of our highest allocations in Q3 2022 with gains of 33% and 43% on our initial entries.” -Business Wire press release, Lead Tech Analyst, Beth Kindig

I/O Fund also owes its lead over other all-tech portfolios to technical analysis. Portfolio Manager, Knox Ridley, actively manages the portfolio in real-time, providing readers with weekly webinars and charts to show where the I/O Fund plans to buy and sell key positions.

Ridley is known for managing high-risk assets in 2022, such as Bitcoin, Nvidia, and Netflix, with a near-perfect track record. This led to outperformance during a historic selloff across tech stocks. Ridley issues real-time trade alerts to research subscribers for every stock entry and exit plus offers a pie chart of the portfolio’s allocations.

“Given that 2022 destroyed more wealth on record than any other time in modern history, beating the Nasdaq on a cumulative basis cannot be overstated. The far majority of our competitors cannot say the same. Our performance reflects our ability to outperform in any market condition,” said Portfolio Manager Knox Ridley.

Note: Knox Ridley holds weekly webinars that discusses the broad market and I/O Fund’s positions, including the positions the I/O Fund plans to trim, add, sell or buy. He also goes through details on the automated hedge weekly. Learn more here.Learn more here.

In April, the I/O Fund partnered with Vincent Duchaine of WealthUmbrella to develop an automated hedging signal. Duchaine is an A.I. and Machine Learning University Professor who worked with Ridley to create an automated risk-on/risk-off signal for retail investors. This marked an important turnaround for the I/O Fund as the team expanded their risk management tools during a critical year to stave off losses.

Sign up for I/O Fund's free newsletter with gains of up to 221% -Click hereSign up for I/O Fund's free newsletter with gains of up to 221% -Click hereClick here

Strategic Approach and Focus on Top-performing Stocks & Sectors

In 2022, we made a strategic shift by leveraging hedging strategies with exposure to top-performing sectors within the tech industry plus top performing stocks.

The I/O Fund held a 30%+ allocation to semiconductors in 2022, which despite all odds, has been one of the top performing sectors in tech in 2021, 2022 and YTD 2023. Beth Kindig’s expertise in the tech industry helped the I/O Fund feel confident allocating 10% and even 15% positions in this complex sector over the past few years.
As early as June last year, Beth shared bullish commentary on one of our most significant current portfolio holdings in the article “Netflix Stock Could Rally with Ad-Supported Content.” Since I/O Fund’s original entry, the stock was up 33% in 2022. The firm held up to a 9% allocation. We offered our free newsletter subscribers an in-depth analysis and investment rationale, enabling them to take advantage of this top performer in the second half of the year.
As stated above, Kindig made contrarian, bullish calls on Nvidia in her free newsletter. Her analysis led to the I/O Fund buying at the October low for a 35% gain by year end, which turned into more than 140% gains total. This position and the others noted above helped the I/O Fund rival the Nasdaq’s performance in 2022.

Cutting-edge Analysis and Innovative Partnership Tools with a Focus on Hedging

The year 2022 marked an important turnaround for our firm as we gave up what I would call “retail idealism” which centers around the idea that holding a stock for a long period of time is retail’s only defense. This works during times of economic expansion, but this can go (horribly) wrong when a new, more challenging macro can change the outlook for any given company.

This year, we partnered with Vincent Duchaine of WealthUmbrella to develop an automated hedging strategy, which helped us successfully bridge the gap between human-driven actions and objective, emotionless machines. Ray Dalio calls this the “man and machine approach.”

With the automated hedging strategies, the I/O Fund was able to hedge up to 100% of our portfolio at times, focusing on playing defense rather than offense during last year’s market extremes. This hedge not only mitigated some of the most significant market drops after April but also set the stage for our relative outperformance towards the end of 2022.

As the market experienced a steep downtrend all year even into year's close, our portfolio manager Knox Ridley provided two long-term bullish scenarios, along with a detailed analysis of global market trends, divergences, and new market leadership. Knox also accurately predicted the August to September pullback and the October market bottom, helping investors make timely decisions in a demanding market environment. As the articles illustrate, Knox publicly navigated the broad market for free newsletter subscribers while reserving his real-time trade alerts for premium members.

A few of the biggest moves from the hedge in 2022 are detailed in the article “The Best of I/O Fund’s Newsletter in 2022” with more information including daily real-time trade alerts provided behind the paywall. The Best of I/O Fund’s Newsletter in 2022” with more information including daily real-time trade alerts provided behind the paywall.

Commitment to Transparency and Accountability

At the heart of I/O Fund, we believe that transparency is key to our success. We keep our members in the loop with real-time trade alerts and audited performance reviews. This raises the bar on accountability as no other retail site goes to these lengths by offering an actively managed and transparent portfolio.

Over the past three years, the I/O Fund has invested over $130,000 into accountability and transparency for our Members. When we launched in July of 2019, for the first year or so, we used a forum hosted by Tribe for our trade alerts, but by January of 2021, we had migrated to SMS and email tools that are least likely to experience an outage for our real-time trade alerts. This costs us $40,000 per year.

In addition to this, we use an auditor from a large firm in San Francisco to mathematically review and verify the performance of our I/O Fund portfolio trading account and crypto account. The process is quite extensive and it takes up to four months to complete. This costs $4,500 per audit and we’ve completed four audits for a total of $18,000 spent on this process. Premium members can access the verified procedures, verified performance and engagement letter here.

I/O Fund Analyst, Beth Kindig, recently wrote “The Importance of Verified Returns and Risk Management for Retail” which identifies three key reasons retail tends to underperform professional investors. The I/O Fund has worked diligently and made sizable investments to empower retail by addressing these issues which include automation, risk management tools and being the only retail firm to offer a verified performance.

The I/O Fund Experiment: Empowering Retail Investors

The I/O Fund's mission is to help retail investors beat Wall Street in the competitive tech sector. Our experiment in providing institutional-level research and tools to retail investors has been successful since we launched in 2019. This includes beating our other all-tech portfolios in the tough years of 2021 and 2022.

Previous press releases:

I/O Fund Announces Impressive 1-Year and 2021 YTD Returns

I/O Fund Outperforms Leading Active Tech Funds in 2021

I/O Fund Cumulative Returns Double the Nasdaq Following a Tough 2022

Join the I/O Fund Community Today!

2022 Full Year Audited Returns

Posted on March 24, 2023June 30, 2026 by io-fund

We’ve issued a press release today in BusinessWire on our full year 2022 returns, which you can find here.

Due to a 180-degree pivot in May, the I/O Fund ended the year at (38.8%). This places us within roughly 6% of the Nasdaq-100 (NDX) which helps illustrate the comeback that occurred starting in May. Typically, in a risk-off environment, the indexes are known to protect investors to the downside. It also helps to gauge the overall cost of owning tech in a historic year for losses in the stock market. Meaning, even the most conservative tech investors lost (32.9%) in 2022, defined by those that hold their exposure to NDX through QQQ.

Notably, losses are geometric in nature, so a portfolio that is down (67%) has to go up 85% to catch up with our 2022 performance of (38.8%). To catch up with the I/O Fund compared to other all-tech portfolios since inception, you’d have to make up 174%.

“If you had invested $10,000 with the I/O Fund's picks versus other all-tech portfolios at inception, the difference would be a portfolio value of $14,692 with IOF versus $5,358 with institutional tech-focused portfolios. The difference in value is 174%”

Our mission statement is to help Retail beat Wall Street in the challenging sector of technology.

When we set out on this mission, it was purely an experiment. The statistics show that Retail often fails to such a high degree that we felt any improvement here would be worth the attempt.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. The I/O Fund is a publishing company. The analysts are not money managers and we are not financial advisors. Please consult with your financial advisor for every trade you do.

A few important stats on our Performance:

The I/O Fund announces a cumulative return of 46.92% since inception versus the Nasdaq-100’s 18.65% return during the same time period.
The I/O Fund’s cumulative returns of 46.92% have more than doubled the Nasdaq since 2020 with an outperformance of 28.27%
I/O Fund’s 2022 performance of (38.8%) rivaled the Nasdaq-100 performance of (32.9%)
The I/O Fund’s relative outperformance in 2022 surpassed institutional all-tech portfolios by as much as 85%
Since inception, the I/O Fund has a lead over institutional technology portfolios by as much as 174%

The transition began in May with the analysis “Compartmentalizing Cloud Stocks” and was complete by August.

In a nutshell, this is what that looks like:

Please note, anything stated outside of our performance review are estimates. The only official, verified number we provide is from the Engagement Letter listed below of (38.8%).

AEHR: 6% Allocation in October-December

NFLX: 9% Allocation in October-December

NVDA: 10% Allocation throughout 2022 with active management

Hedge: mitigated some of the largest drops after April. The biggest moves from our hedge in 2022 are below. The green indicates periods where we mitigated the drawdowns, while red indicates periods where we had to close our hedge for a loss.

Hedging

In an environment where the odds can be stacked against Retail, the I/O Fund is committed to leveraging tools that institutional-level money managers are unable to leverage.

The primary tool we leveraged for Retail in 2022 was hedging. In 2021, the tool we leveraged for Retail was to actively manage crypto. A few of the all-tech portfolios listed in our comparison chart are not able to leverage these tools. For example, ETFs such as QQQ (tracks the NASDAQ-100) and ARKK do not hedge and do not hold crypto.

In 2022 we partnered with Vincent Duchaine of WealthUmbrella. The automated hedge that Duchaine built helped the I/O Fund close the gap between human-driven actions and emotionless machines. This marked an important turnaround for our firm as we gave up what I would call “retail idealism” which centers around the idea that holding a stock for a long period of time is retail’s only defense. This works during times of economic expansion, but this can go (horribly) wrong when a new, more challenging macro can change the outlook for any given company.

I’ll be the first to point out that success is a team effort, and these Knox and Vincent repeatedly ran the ball into the end zone in the third and fourth quarter. If half the battle is just showing up, then most of you noticed Knox and Vincent did not let our Members down in this regard.

April of 2022 marks the end of the I/O Fund relying on stock picks as the primary, offensive measure. It marks the beginning of what I would call IOF 2.0, more officially known as “man and machine” and “woman and machine.” After partnering with WealthUmbrella on an automated hedge, the I/O Fund hedged successfully up to 100% of our portfolio, at times.

We pivoted to playing defense rather than offense. Those who watch team sports will understand this transition well, as the strategy changes from attempting to make money (or make a goal) to a strategy that prevents losses (or prevents a goal).

With Vincent’s help, the I/O Fund has reduced whipsaws. The automation tool has also freed up Knox’s time to work on broad market and identify circuit breakers, which are the broad market levels that must hold. Together, these two launched an incredible tool for retail.

Performance Review

Below is the engagement letter from the firm that reviews and verifies our performance. Our terms and conditions with the accounting firm state that this engagement letter is to only be shared with paying customers. For that reason, our performance letter resides behind our paywall.

With that said, any paying customer can access the engagement letter which is posted on io-fund.com/premium and io-fund.com/essentials for this purpose.

The I/O Fund owns the performance review and we do not authorize our customers or any person on our site to share a confidential engagement letter or performance review outside of our paywall. As the owner of the report, we will at times market our performance number outside of the paywall. The terms and conditions can be found here.

The I/O Fund Experiment

Our site and services remain an experiment to see if Retail can beat Wall Street. There is no guarantee the experiment will work out in the future. Humility is the one adjective that best describes the market and we had a heavy dose of this last May.

I believe our site’s edge is the accountability and transparency we offer. By tracking every trade in real-time, we were forced into instant accountability on every action we were taking. What resulted was rapid self-improvement, similar to athletes who track every mile they run, or every swing of the bat. By measuring every single daily action, our accountability went through the roof as did our drive to improve.

Real-time trade alerts and an audited performance are extremely uncomfortable when you’re not performing well. However, it was this very thing that forced us to become better during a landslide in tech.

We made the case that this is partly why retail performs so poorly. There are simply too few resources available that mirror what real money managers do. With that said, most professional money managers resemble what Knox does on the I/O Fund site, which is actively managing positions, with lots of activity, pivots and course corrections. This is the reality even if Retail is sold on utopian idea that you can buy one stock and hold into eternity. In some cases, this is the correct thing to do, but it’s rare.

2022 Was Still Negative = The I/O Fund Has More Work to Do

In our webinar, we pointed out the Lessons Learned from 2022. The methodologies and processes from pre-2022 simply weren’t working, and perhaps due to our high level of accountability, we felt this more than most. For a live presentation on this important pivot plus the Lessons We Learned from 2022, please reference our premium webinar here.

Here is a brief summary, the full list can be found/heard on the webinar.

Lack of flexibility was our number one mistake last year. We need to be more willing to change.
Cold, Hard Facts Vs Hopium. We were ignoring obvious facts and relying on hopium instead (hopium most dangerous around earnings)
100% Offensive instead of a mix of Defensive = put making money above protecting money

How the I/O Fund Sets a High Bar for Accountability

In addition to a lack of risk management tools, we believe a lack of verified returns in the retail space contributes to the losses this investor type experiences. Smart money is careful about who they consider a good investor — they do not take someone’s word they are a good investor; they make the investors or firms they follow prove it. Every single hedge fund has to report their returns, which reduces the chances of posturing.

Retail is not offered these checks and balances, and instead, this investor type follows many influencers and research sites who verbally state their performance without proper verification. Across the board, retail is offered a very low amount of accountability – this includes unverified month-end reviews, a list of stock tickers, unchecked screenshots, or other methods that are easy to manipulate. This widespread acceptance of loosely stating a stock performance is odd, to say the least, considering the finance industry is more inclined than any other industry toward deceptive practices.

Over the past three years, the I/O Fund has invested over $130,000 into accountability and transparency for our Members. When we launched in July of 2019, for the first year or so, we used a forum hosted by Tribe for our trade alerts, but by January of 2021, we had migrated to SMS and email tools that were the least likely to experience an outage for our real-time trade alerts. This costs us $40,000 per year.

In addition to this, we use an auditor from a large firm in San Francisco to mathematically review and verify the performance of our I/O Fund portfolio trading account and crypto account. The process is quite extensive and it takes up to four months to complete. This costs $4,500 per audit and we’ve completed four audits for a total of $18,000 spent on this process.

We want to thank our members for believing in a small team that is focused on beating Wall Street. The sense of community we all have created together and the support we received during a tough 2022 was extraordinary. When we launched our retail-focused fund, we aspired to bring institutional level research to investors by forming a small, focused team that cares very much about their chosen specialty. We continue to improve upon our processes and look to strengthen our returns going forward.