Morningstar rated fund continues to seek portfolio protection in crisis periods while allowing for full exposure during more favorable environments

Little Harbor Advisors, a boutique investment firm with a focus on alternative, tactical, and risk-responsive strategies, celebrates the five-year anniversary of its LHA Market State™ Tactical Beta ETF (CBOE: MSTB).

The fund has a four-star rating from Morningstar in the U.S. Fund Equity Hedged Category*, and offers exposure to the S&P 500 with a dynamic risk-management overlay. In calm and/or rising markets, MSTB aims to provide upside participation. When crisis conditions are present, generally upon a flattening or inversion in the VIX futures curve, MSTB seeks uncorrelated returns to decrease the impact of falling markets. Unlike passive strategies, this active approach can both realize crisis hedge profits and cut “near crisis” hedge losses in its effort to create and preserve long term hedging gains – a previously foreign concept in the hedged equity space.

MSTB is designed and managed by volatility specialists Mike Thompson, CFA, and Matt Thompson, CFA, who have dedicated their careers to identifying and mitigating market risk through volatility-driven tactical asset allocation.

MSTB has demonstrated its ability to successfully navigate various market environments over the past five years. It is in the top quartile rank of its Morningstar Category for the 1-Year, 3- Year and 5-Year periods, which includes 162 funds. Below is its percentile rank in the U.S. Fund Equity Hedged Category* as of September 30, 2025.

“As a market downturn becomes seemingly inevitable, tactical, risk-responsive strategies are an essential component to portfolios,” said the Thompsons. “This five-year milestone and recognition from Morningstar reaffirm the importance of cost-conscious and efficient hedging, and our philosophy that VIX instruments may offer the best hedge against U.S. equity beta.”

Since its inception in 2020, MSTB has delivered strong risk-adjusted performance, including an 84% upside capture, a 1.05 Sharpe ratio, and has outperformed the S&P 500 on a 1-year basis.

“Over the past five years, MSTB’s tactical hedge approach has proven its value,” said Rick Tomney, President-Wealth Advisor Solutions at Little Harbor Advisors. “With the Thompsons’ expertise, the fund has grown, earned meaningful recognition, and consistently outperformed top equity-hedged competitors across market cycles.”

MSTB’s sister ETF, the LHA Market State™ Tactical Q ETF (CBOE: MSTQ), applies the same tactical overlay to the Nasdaq 100. Now over three years old, as of September 30, 2025, MSTQ has also earned a five-star rating from Morningstar and continues to rank in the top decile of the U.S. Fund Equity Hedged Category*, for the 1-Year and 3-Year periods, which includes 162 funds.

For more information on the funds, please visit https://www.lhafunds.com/.

About Little Harbor Advisors

Little Harbor Advisors, LLC (“LHA”) is an investment management firm based in Marblehead, Massachusetts. LHA is an outgrowth of a family office that has focused exclusively on alternative investments since 2004. The firm combines deep experience in manager and strategy selection with an in-house sales team serving multiple distribution channels. LHA’s 6- person senior management team and a 6-person portfolio management team includes seven Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs), one Chartered Market Technician (CMT), and a dedicated sales team of four professionals. The firm maintains institutional-grade capabilities across investment analysis, manager due diligence, product development, risk management, trading, compliance, and marketing, delivering high-quality, long-term partnerships for its clients. For more information, visit www.littleharboradvisors.com.

Provided for informational purposes only and does not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice. This is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund or strategy, or for the provision of any investment management or advisory services. Little Harbor Advisors, LLC (LHA) has a license with Thompson Capital Management LLC to employ and market the Tactical Beta and Tactical Q strategies.

Past Performance does not guarantee future results. An investor should consider a fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses carefully before investing. This and other important information about the fund can be found in the fund’s Prospectus, or if applicable, Summary Prospectus. Read the Prospectus carefully before investing. To obtain a copy of the prospectus for the MSTB and MSTQ visit www.lhafunds.com or call your financial advisor. The MSTB Prospectus may also be obtained by contacting Little Harbor Advisors, LLC at (781) 639- 3000.

For the most recent standardized performance click on MSTB and MSTQ.

An investment in the fund is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the principal amount invested. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV), may trade at a discount or premium to NAV, and are not individually redeemed from the fund. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. The fund will use future contracts which have risks, including the imperfect correlation between the value of such instruments and the underlying assets and the potential loss of principal. The potential loss of principal in regard to futures contracts can be in amounts greater than the initial amount invested in the futures contract. Because the fund may “turn over” some or all of its portfolio as frequently as daily, the fund may incur high levels of transaction costs, which could reduce shareholder returns.

*The Morningstar US Fund Equity Hedged Category Benchmark is the equal-weighted returns of the constituent Equity Hedged funds which Morningstar categorizes as strategies which use a variety of options trades, including options-based hedged equity, put writing, options spreads, and collar strategies, among others. In addition, strategies in this group that engage in option writing may seek to generate a portion of their returns, either indirectly or directly, from the volatility risk premium associated with options trading strategies. Funds in the category will typically have beta values compared to relevant benchmarks of less than 0.6.

The Morningstar Overall Rating^TM for funds, or “Star Rating,” is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed- end funds, and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product’s monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The Morningstar Rating does not include any adjustment for sales loads. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars, and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The weights are: 100% three-year rating for 36-59 months of total returns, 60% five-year rating/40% three-year rating for 60-119 months of total returns, and 50% 10-year rating/30% five-year rating/20% three-year rating for 120 or more months of total returns. While the 10-year overall star rating formula seems to give the most weight to the 10-year period, the most recent three-year period actually has the greatest impact because it is included in all three rating periods. Please see: https://www.morningstar.com/company/morningstar-ratings-faq

The Morningstar Quartile Rank and Percentile Rank (“Morningstar Rankings”) for 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and 10-year periods (as applicable) are calculated by Morningstar by comparing all the funds within the Morningstar US Fund Equity Hedged Category based on fund total return for the applicable historical period. See: https://community.morningstar.com/s/article/Ranks-of-Funds. Exchange-traded and open end mutual funds are combined into a single population for comparative purposes. Fund performance used within the Morningstar Rankings reflects certain fee waivers, without which, returns and Morningstar rankings would have been lower. The highest (or most favorable) percentile rank is 1 and the lowest (or least favorable) percentile rank is 100.

The Fund may use leverage which may cause the effect of an increase or decrease in the value of the portfolio securities to be magnified and the Fund to be more volatile than if leverage was not used. These risks, in certain cases, may be greater than the risks presented by more traditional investments. The Fund will invest in other ETFs that may invest in small- and mid-cap companies, which involves additional risks such as limited liquidity and greater volatility. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251021333252/en/