Monthly ETF Trend + Drift
Trend following · Multi-asset · Daily
The rules, in plain English
This runs the same 50/200-day trend idea on ETFs, but only rebalances at month-end — and only when a holding has drifted more than 5% from its target. Trading less often cuts turnover and costs. The drift band is what stops tiny wiggles from triggering constant trades.
The published backtest
| Total return | +138.0% |
|---|---|
| CAGR (annual growth rate) | +4.66% |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.31 |
| Maximum drawdown (worst peak-to-trough fall) | -19.4% |
| Win rate | 63.5% |
| Profit factor | 1.73 |
| Risk grade (our shorthand, from the published figures) | B |
| Asset class | Multi-asset |
| Style | Trend following |
| Timeframe | Daily |
| Type | Weights |
— means no figure was published for this strategy. Ungraded and workflow entries publish diagnostics rather than a graded portfolio backtest, so some metrics are not published for them.
Honest verdict
Held up
This one held up in its published backtest: a positive return with a comparatively solid risk-adjusted result for this set. That is a statement about one historical test, not a promise about the future.
Worst drawdown in the published test: -19.4% — at its lowest point, a follower of this test would have been down that much from the peak before any recovery.
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Attribution: strategy and published backtest results from the QuantJourney open-source library (Apache-2.0), via quants.md — published backtest results by QuantJourney, reproduced with attribution. Results are hypothetical backtest results based on historical data; they are not live trading results and do not guarantee future performance. Educational content only — not financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security.