Stocks & ETFs
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The S&P 500 through SPY, the most traded ETF: 33 years of daily prices from 1993 with every dividend, tested with dividends reinvested, T-bill interest in cash and costs on every trade.
01The tests
| Test | Instrument and data | Variants tried | Passed every gate | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accumulation/Distribution Indicator on the S&P 500: 33 Years of SPY | SPY daily, real volume, total return | 3 | 0 | Buried · Fragile |
| 200-Day Moving Average Strategy Backtest: SPY 1993-2026, With Dividends | SPY ETF, daily, with dividends | 2 | 0 | Buried · Fragile |
5 variants tried across 2 full write-ups, 0 passed every gate. Verdicts follow the protocol: Buried means at least one gate failed; “No proven edge” means a statistically convincing edge was not demonstrated, not that none exists.
02How these were tested
SPY daily prices from Yahoo Finance, 29 January 1993 to 20 October 2026, with all 136 dividends listed separately; results use total return (dividends reinvested), cash earns the 3-month T-bill rate (FRED), and every round trip costs 0.04% of the price. Signals use the close and trades the next open.
03What is not here yet
Single stocks (they need survivorship-free data: companies that left the index), QQQ and leveraged ETFs such as TQQQ, other trend filters, and the other popular stock rules (sell in May, dual momentum).