Security and Data Handling

BallastX is a recommendation engine, not a discretionary manager. The platform generates hedging suggestions (specific options strategies, strike prices, expiry dates, and rationale). The advisor reviews and approves every suggestion inside the platform. The client executes through their own brokerage account using their own credentials.

BallastX never holds custody of client assets. BallastX never places, routes, or executes trades. BallastX never has access to a client's brokerage login or trading credentials.

• No discretionary authority, no power of attorney, no trading access.
• No custody of securities, cash, or options contracts.
• Every recommendation requires explicit advisor approval before it is presented to a client.
• The platform reads brokerage holdings only with the advisor's explicit OAuth consent via SnapTrade. BallastX stores the resulting SnapTrade connection secret encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; the advisor's brokerage login credentials go directly to the brokerage via SnapTrade and are never seen or stored by BallastX.

Nothing on this platform constitutes investment advice to a client. The platform produces analysis and documentation for use by the registered investment advisor. Advisors remain solely responsible for the suitability of any recommendation.

What we collect

• Account data: advisor email address, firm name, and Clerk-managed authentication credentials (password hash and session tokens handled entirely by Clerk).
• Position inputs: ticker symbols, share counts, cost basis, and other portfolio details that the advisor enters to generate a recommendation.
• Approved recommendations and audit records: the full record of each recommendation the advisor reviewed, the decision made, and the rationale logged, stored in the immutable compliance ledger described below.
• Usage analytics: page views, feature interactions, and error events, used to improve the product. These do not contain client identifiable information.
• Standard server data: IP address and user-agent string, logged for security and abuse prevention.

What we do not collect

• We do not store brokerage usernames, passwords, or full account numbers.
• Brokerage read access, where enabled, is managed through SnapTrade. BallastX stores a SnapTrade user reference ID and the SnapTrade connection secret, encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM (see access controls below). We never see or store your brokerage username or password — those go directly to the brokerage via SnapTrade.
• We do not collect Social Security numbers, tax IDs, dates of birth, or payment card data.

Market data sources

Options pricing, underlying equity prices, and volatility data come from publicly available or commercially licensed market data feeds: currently Tradier (quotes and options chains in the web application) plus Polygon.io, Finnhub, and FRED (in the analytics engine). These are standard, disclosed data sources. BallastX does not use non-public or material non-public information.

Vercel (hosting and edge delivery)

The BallastX web application and API routes are deployed on Vercel's managed cloud infrastructure. Vercel operates SOC 2 Type II certified data centers and enforces HTTPS for all traffic. More detail: vercel.com/security.

Neon (Postgres database)

Recommendation records, audit ledger entries, and position data are stored in a Neon serverless Postgres database. Neon encrypts data at rest and in transit. Neon's security documentation is available at neon.tech/docs/security.

Clerk (authentication)

User authentication, session management, and multi-factor authentication are handled by Clerk. BallastX never sees or stores plaintext passwords. Clerk is SOC 2 Type II certified. More detail: clerk.com/security.

SnapTrade (brokerage OAuth)

Read-only brokerage connections are managed through SnapTrade, a regulated fintech infrastructure provider. SnapTrade handles brokerage authentication and brokerage API communication. BallastX never receives brokerage login credentials; it stores the SnapTrade connection secret encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. More detail: snaptrade.com/security.

Resend (transactional email)

Recommendation delivery emails and platform notifications are sent via Resend. Resend processes advisor email addresses and the content of outbound messages. It does not have access to the database or ledger.

Every recommendation generated by the platform, every advisor approval or rejection, and every rationale note is written to an append-only, hash-chained ledger. Each entry contains a full-length SHA-256 hash of its own content plus the hash of the preceding entry, forming a tamper-evident chain.

This means that once a decision is recorded, it cannot be silently modified or deleted. Any attempt to alter a past record breaks the hash chain and produces a detectable inconsistency. The chain is also tail-anchored: truncating or deleting the most recent entries — not just editing older ones — is detected on verification, closing the blind spot a plain hash chain would otherwise leave at its tip.

Dollar amounts in compliance records — protection cost, loss reduction, and related figures — are stored as exact decimals, not floating-point approximations, so audit records reflect the precise values without rounding drift.

For compliance purposes, the ledger provides:

• A complete, timestamped record of every hedging recommendation and its disposition.
• The specific model inputs and market data used to generate each recommendation.
• Evidence that the advisor, not the platform, made the final decision.
• Exportable records for SEC AI-governance documentation under current guidance.

Advisors and compliance officers can export ledger records in PDF and CSV formats from the compliance dashboard at any time.

• All traffic is encrypted in transit via TLS 1.2 or higher.
• Database connections use encrypted channels.
• Firm-level data isolation: every firm-scoped request is authorized against the caller's own firm; compliance and ledger data cannot be read or written across firms.
• Sensitive secrets are encrypted at rest: brokerage connection secrets (SnapTrade) are stored with AES-256-GCM application-level encryption, not plaintext.
• The decision ledger is append-only at the database level: a database constraint blocks any deletion or change to sealed ledger records, independent of the application. Entries are chained with full-length SHA-256 integrity hashes, and the chain is tail-anchored so that removing the newest entries is also detectable.
• Compliance dollar amounts are stored as exact decimals: monetary fields in compliance records use fixed-precision decimal storage, not floating-point, avoiding rounding drift in audit figures.
• The analytics engine is reachable only by the authenticated application (shared-secret), never directly from a browser; public endpoints are rate-limited.
• Security response headers (frame-ancestors / clickjacking protection, content-type, referrer, HSTS) are enforced on every response.
• Production data access by BallastX personnel requires explicit authorization and is logged.
• API keys and secrets are stored as environment variables, never in source code.
• Dependency updates and security advisories are reviewed on a rolling basis.

BallastX is an early-stage company. We have not yet completed a formal SOC 2 audit, ISO 27001 certification, or third-party penetration test. We do not claim any certification we have not earned.

Our infrastructure relies on certified providers (Vercel, Clerk, Neon) and we follow the security practices described above. As the platform grows toward broader institutional deployment, formal third-party audit and certification is on our near-term roadmap.

We are happy to walk your compliance or IT security team through our architecture, data flows, and current controls in detail. Email security@ballastx.com to schedule a call.