Matthew Stephenson

Matthew Stephenson, CFA, holds an MBA in Finance & Derivatives from Columbia Business School and has more than 25 years of experience spanning business valuation, forensic accounting, institutional portfolio management, derivatives, ETF investing, and proprietary trading. His career has combined analytical rigor, fundamental research, and practical investment management across both public and private markets.

Mr. Stephenson began his finance career in banking, where as a U.S. Bank Branch Manager he led his team to a top national performance ranking while maintaining exceptional regulatory compliance. He then joined Arthur Andersen's valuation practice (later Accenture following the firm's acquisition), where he served as a Senior Valuation Consultant and Forensic Accountant performing business valuations, litigation support, financial modeling, and due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, tax and estate planning, shareholder disputes, and other complex financial matters.

His valuation work included serving as lead analyst on the valuation of a minority interest in Koch Industries during the widely followed Anna Nicole Smith / J. Howard Marshall estate litigation. He also participated in forensic accounting engagements associated with the Reed Slatkin Ponzi scheme receivership, developing expertise in financial investigations, distressed businesses, and complex litigation support.

Mr. Stephenson later transitioned to the buy side as Principal and Portfolio Manager at Alta Capital Management, where he managed a concentrated $1.5 billion U.S. equity portfolio recognized for ranking second nationally in risk-adjusted returns over rolling three-, five-, and seven-year periods. His investment process emphasized deep fundamental research, intrinsic value analysis, competitive positioning, and long-term business quality across every major sector of the U.S. economy. Managing a concentrated portfolio required maintaining detailed operating and valuation models while continuously evaluating industry dynamics, competitive threats, capital allocation, and changing macroeconomic conditions.

Following the Global Financial Crisis, Mr. Stephenson devoted significant research to integrating option derivatives into long-term investment portfolios--not as speculative instruments, but as tools for risk management; as well as to create synthetic bond-like yields for clients with large blocks of one company's stock, without selling. His work focused on developing practical methods that could allow retirees and long-term investors to maintain meaningful equity exposure while seeking to reduce the impact of severe market drawdowns similar to those experienced during the financial crisis. This research evolved into extensive experience evaluating protective option strategies, defined-outcome investing, buffered ETFs, option-overlay portfolios, and other derivative-based approaches designed to balance participation in equity markets with downside risk management.

Over more than two decades, Mr. Stephenson has actively traded listed options on ETFs and has closely followed the evolution of options-based exchange-traded products. He has extensive familiarity with defined outcome and buffered ETF structures, including products offered by Innovator ETFs, First Trust, BlackRock (iShares), Calamos Investments, and Global X. His experience includes evaluating product construction, option implementation, investor suitability, competitive positioning, category adoption, and the practical tradeoffs between packaged ETF solutions and custom options strategies.

As financial markets and technology evolved, Mr. Stephenson also served on consulting teams responsible for training financial advisors during the integration of Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney branch networks, quickly mastering new advisory platforms and delivering nationwide instruction on investment technology and workflow implementation.

For more than 15 years, Mr. Stephenson has been Founder and CEO of Paragon Elite Trading, where he has developed comprehensive educational programs covering equity, futures, foreign exchange, cryptocurrency, options, and risk management. He has coached hundreds of traders worldwide while conducting extensive due diligence on proprietary trading firms, evaluating their risk frameworks, operational structures, funding models, trading rules, and long-term sustainability. This research ultimately led to the launch of Paragon Funded Trader, combining institutional risk management principles with modern proprietary trading infrastructure.

Mr. Stephenson's expertise combines institutional equity portfolio management, business valuation, forensic accounting, derivatives, ETF investing, options-based portfolio construction, proprietary trading firm evaluation, macroeconomic analysis, and investor education. His background enables him to discuss both the technical mechanics and the strategic rationale behind investment products, portfolio construction, risk management, and capital allocation with institutional investors, asset managers, and financial professionals.

Areas of Expertise:
Institutional equity portfolio management
Business valuation and forensic accounting
Fundamental equity research and financial modeling
Defined outcome ETFs and buffered ETFs
ETF options and derivative strategies
Options-based portfolio construction and risk management
Retirement portfolio risk mitigation
Due diligence on proprietary trading firms
Macroeconomic and bottom-up investment research
Portfolio diversification and hedging strategies
Financial advisor education and curriculum development
Futures, foreign exchange, cryptocurrency, and derivatives markets