A long-time member who has been a valuable source of feedback over the years sent us the following note about the most recent strategy added to the platform: Gold Cross-Asset Momentum. The strategy has performed poorly relative to other strategies on the platform. You’ve turned down other stuff that was marginal like this, so I’m […]
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Gold Cross-Asset Momentum
This is a test of a simple and effective gold trading strategy from Cyril Dujava of Quantpedia with his research: Cross-Asset Price-Based Regimes for Gold. Backtested results from 1970 follow. Results are net of transaction costs – see backtest assumptions. Learn about what we do and follow 100+ asset allocation strategies like this one in […]
New Feature: The Underperformer Watchlist
We’ve added a new feature for members, the Underperformer Watchlist. All investment strategies go through rough patches. It’s the nature of taking risks in inherently unpredictable financial markets. One of the difficulties of investing is knowing when a rough patch is just a normal period of poor performance, and when it’s significant enough to warrant […]
Challenging the “Lazy Man’s Momentum Strategy”
This is a quick analysis of the “Lazy Man’s Momentum Strategy”, a simple country rotation strategy. Every six months the strategy selects from 22 country indices, buying the 11 with the highest 6-month return (*). For reasons we discuss in a bit, we will not be adding this strategy to our platform. Backtested results from […]
Using the OECD Composite Leading Indicator + Momentum to Time the Market
This is a test of Grzegorz Link’s “Enhanced” Global Growth Cycle (GGC) strategy. Like the original GGC, this enhanced version uses the OECD Composite Leading Indicator to determine risk exposure, but unlike the original, it also considers momentum to determine the specific risk on/off assets to hold. Backtested results from 1961 follow. Results are net […]
Carlson’s “Defense First”
This is a test of Thomas Carlson’s “Defense First” strategy from his paper Defense First: A Multi-Asset Tactical Model for Adaptive Downside Protection. Strategy results from 1971 follow. Results are net of transaction costs – see backtest assumptions. Learn about what we do and follow 90+ asset allocation strategies like this one in near real-time. […]
The 10 Most Popular TAA Strategies Ranked
We’re in a unique position to analyze the behavior of Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) investors. We track 90+ TAA strategies. Members combine these strategies into what we call “Model Portfolios”. By analyzing how members form these Model Portfolios, we can understand the choices that TAA investors make when strategies are presented objectively (no marketing mumbo […]
The Lumber-Gold Strategy
The Lumber-Gold Strategy was first published a decade ago, won the 2015 NAAIM Wagner Award, and continues to be cited today. The strategy trades based on the relative strength of lumber as a leading economic indicator, versus gold. How has the strategy performed since publication? Strategy results from 1987 follow. Results are net of transaction […]
Navigating Economic Downturns with Survey-Based Recession Indicators
This test was inspired by Yulong Sun’s paper Navigating Economic Downturns: Insights from Survey-Based Recession Indicators. Strategy results from 1970 follow. Results are net of transaction costs – see backtest assumptions. Learn about what we do and follow 90+ asset allocation strategies like this one in near real-time. Logarithmically-scaled. Click for linearly-scaled results. These results […]
Cliff Smith’s BKLN Strategy
Questions about this long-ago strategy from Cliff Smith land in our inbox periodically (here’s another recent take). Smith’s simple strategy trades senior loan (aka leveraged loan) ETFs like BKLN, and has continued to be effective at timing these ETFs in the 10+ years since it was published. We’ve extended the author’s original test back to […]