Retirees Can Now Get 100 Percent Downside Protection in an ETF and Still Keep Stock Market Upside
Structured notes have long offered this kind of downside protection, but retirees had to lock up capital and accept illiquidity to get it. A new breed of ETF changes that equation in a way most conservative investors have not yet…
A new generation of defined-outcome ETFs has quietly redrawn what a conservative allocation can look like. iShares Large Cap Max Buffer Jun ETF (CBOE:MAXJ) sits at one end of the spectrum, offering roughly 100% protection against S&P 500 losses over a one-year outcome period in exchange for a capped upside. Innovator U.S. Equity Power Buffer ETF – January (CBOE:PJAN) sits in the middle with a 15% buffer, and FT Vest Laddered Buffer ETF (CBOE:BUFR) wraps four quarterly 10% buffers into a single ticker.
For retirees, the pitch is specific. The 10-year Treasury yields nearly 5%, the VIX sits near 17, and the 2026 Social Security COLA came in at just 2.8%. Fixed income alone leaves inflation risk on the table, while unhedged equities leave sequence-of-returns risk on the table. Buffered ETFs try to split the difference.
How Defined-Outcome ETFs Actually Work
Each of these funds uses a stack of FLEX options on the S&P 500 to engineer a specific payoff shape over a defined outcome period, usually 12 months. The manager buys deep in-the-money calls to replicate index exposure, sells further out-of-the-money calls to fund the hedge, and buys puts to establish the buffer floor. The cost of financing the puts sets the upside cap.
The tradeoff is mechanical. A deeper buffer means a lower cap. A shallower buffer means the fund keeps more upside. That single lever explains most of the differences between the three funds below.
MAXJ: The 100% Downside Protection Play
The reason this article exists is this fund. It is part of BlackRock’s Max Buffer suite, which targets roughly full protection against S&P 500 declines from the start of each annual outcome period. The June-reset fund holds IVV as its core equity engine at 107.69% of net assets, then overlays a structured options position (visible in the filings as offsetting long and short derivatives with Susquehanna Financial Group) to reshape the payoff. MAXJ offers a way to participate in equity upside while limiting downside risk, appealing to investors seeking capital preservation with growth potential.
The result is a fund that behaves less like the S&P 500 and more like a structured note in ETF form. Beta sits at 0.30, roughly a third of the market’s sensitivity. The fund has averaged 8.4% annually since its June 28, 2024 inception, and assets under management sit near $147 million, still small for the iShares complex.
The expense ratio is 0.50%, which undercuts most of the buffer category. That cost advantage matters because the return profile is already capped. Every extra basis point of fees comes directly out of a bounded outcome. The one-year total return is 7%.
The catch with a max-buffer product is the ceiling. Investors who buy MAXJ mid-period get whatever remaining cap and buffer the fund still has, not the fresh numbers advertised at the June reset. Anyone considering it should look at the current outcome-period disclosures on the iShares site before committing capital.
PJAN: A Deeper Cap in Exchange for a Shallower Floor
The opposite side of the tradeoff is taken by this fund. Innovator’s Power Buffer series absorbs the first 15% of S&P 500 losses over a one-year period beginning each January, then passes further declines through to the investor. In exchange, the upside cap is meaningfully higher than what a 100% protection fund can offer. PJAN suits investors willing to accept some downside exposure in return for greater participation in market gains.
The mechanics are the same option stack as MAXJ, just calibrated differently. Beta is 0.49, roughly half the market. Year-to-date, the fund has returned 5.85%, and since its January 2, 2019 launch, it has averaged 9.5% per year.
Scale is a distinguishing feature. PJAN holds $1.46 billion in assets, one of the older and larger single-outcome buffer products on the market. The one-year total return is 12%. Deep liquidity and a long operating history through the 2020 crash, the 2022 bear market, and the March 2026 VIX spike to 31 give retirees a track record to inspect.
The expense ratio is 0.79%. Retirees choosing PJAN over MAXJ are effectively saying they will accept the possibility of losses beyond 15% in a truly severe drawdown in exchange for capturing more of a normal up year.
BUFR: The Laddered Alternative for Investors Who Do Not Want to Time an Entry
A specific problem that trips up first-time buyers of defined-outcome ETFs is solved by this fund: the mid-period entry issue. Because a January-reset fund’s buffer and cap are only fully intact on January 1, buying PJAN in July means accepting whatever protection is left after six months of market movement. BUFR’s monthly reset structure offers a cleaner entry point for investors who want to deploy cash throughout the year rather than waiting for a specific reset date.
The First Trust and Vest partnership sidesteps this by running a fund of funds. BUFR holds the four quarterly Vest 10% Buffer ETFs (January, April, July, October) in roughly equal weights, so a quarter of the portfolio is always at a fresh outcome-period start. That laddered structure means there is no wrong day to buy it.
The fund carries a beta of 0.60, the highest of the three, because a 10% buffer leaves more market exposure than either MAXJ or PJAN. The fund has compounded at 10.6% annually since its August 10, 2020 launch. Year-to-date is 7%.
The one-year total return is 14%. Assets stand at $10.07 billion, making it the largest laddered buffer product in the category. The expense ratio is 0.95%, the highest of the three funds here, reflecting the layered structure of running four underlying funds inside one wrapper.
Matching the Fund to the Retiree
The three funds sit on a clear risk-return continuum. MAXJ suits a retiree who cannot tolerate a paper loss in a portfolio bucket, is willing to accept a low cap in exchange for that certainty, and is comfortable buying near a June reset. Its 0.30 beta and 0.50% fee make it the most bond-like of the group.
An investor who wants a defined floor but still needs equity-like returns to keep pace with inflation and a 2.8% COLA fits PJAN. The 15% buffer covers a typical correction, and the higher cap leaves room to compound.
The choice for retirees who want continuous exposure, do not want to think about outcome-period timing, and are comfortable accepting a shallower 10% buffer in exchange for that operational simplicity and higher market participation is BUFR.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
David Beren has been a Flywheel Publishing contributor since 2022. Writing for 24/7 Wall St. since 2023, David loves to write about topics of all shapes and sizes. As a technology expert, David focuses heavily on consumer electronics brands, automobiles, and general technology. He has previously written for LifeWire, formerly About.com. As a part-time freelance writer, David’s “day job” has been working on and leading social media for multiple Fortune 100 brands. David loves the flexibility of this field and its ability to reach customers exactly where they like to spend their time. Additionally, David previously published his own blog, TmoNews.com, which reached 3 million readers in its first year. In addition to freelance and social media work, David loves to spend time with his family and children and relive the glory days of video game consoles by playing any retro game console he can get his hands on.
