Does anything beat buy & hold on Ameren (AEE)?
Every setup we tested on Ameren (AEE) — ranked out-of-sample, corrected for multiple testing, and forward-tracked in public from the day this page published. The honest answer is the headline.
Beat buy-and-hold out-of-sample AND cleared the multiple-testing hurdle.
Beat buy-and-hold out-of-sample AND full-sample out-of-sample Sharpe 1.28 cleared the selection hurdle 1.24. Buy-and-hold benchmark: +8.3% CAGR over 28.5 years (+9.5% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Ameren (AEE): One Setup Cleared the Bar — What That Does and Doesn't Mean
A validated verdict on an individual stock is rare, and it should be. Single companies are earnings-driven and idiosyncratic: one guidance cut or CEO exit can swamp any technical signal. We ran 747 indicator setups on Ameren, of which 674 had enough history to qualify. Most stocks in our universe produce nothing that beats simply holding shares. Here, Detrended Price Osc. on the weekly timeframe outperformed buy-and-hold in both the full window and the held-out period, and its out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.28 cleared the multiple-testing hurdle of 1.24. A signal that survived 8.6 years of company-specific noise is worth documenting.
Read this as a record, not a promise. Out-of-sample alpha of +8.5% (full-window +2.0%) against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +8.3% came with a win rate of 68.8%, a maximum drawdown of -42.7%, and 173 trades — enough to measure, few enough that a handful of outcomes shaped the result. Only 0.6% of setups beat holding at all, so selection pressure is real even after the hurdle. Note the survivorship trap: AEE exists today to be tested; delisted peers don't. Companies change, regimes change, and past validation does not predict future results.
Every figure above is computed from our own backtests — nothing is estimated or invented. Hypothetical results; not investment advice.
The setups that ranked, and what they are
Fully mechanical — no discretionary steps, no hidden filters. We name the indicator and publish its record; we keep the settings.
Detrended Price Osc.
What it is: An oscillator rule: it reads a bounded momentum gauge and takes exposure when it turns from an extreme. Long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting. The parameters we tested are not published.
How it was tested: signals evaluated at weekly-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side. Same engine, same cost model, same out-of-sample split as every other number on this site.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 1.28 · alpha +8.5% · 55 trades over 8.6 yrs.
Stochastic RSI
What it is: An oscillator rule: it reads a bounded momentum gauge and takes exposure when it turns from an extreme. Long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting. The parameters we tested are not published.
How it was tested: signals evaluated at weekly-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side. Same engine, same cost model, same out-of-sample split as every other number on this site.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 1.02 · alpha +1.1% · 17 trades over 8.6 yrs.
Williams %R
What it is: An oscillator rule: it reads a bounded momentum gauge and takes exposure when it turns from an extreme. Long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting. The parameters we tested are not published.
How it was tested: signals evaluated at weekly-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side. Same engine, same cost model, same out-of-sample split as every other number on this site.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 0.91 · alpha -1.8% · 12 trades over 8.6 yrs.
Since publication — including if it loses
The setup is ahead so far — over a window this short that is mostly noise. Marked to market nightly from real prices, rules frozen at publication, as of 2026-09-03. Currently LONG.
We tested 747 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Ameren (AEE). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (674 did). Setups are ranked by out-of-sample Sharpe — the last ~30% of history, which standard-parameter rules never saw during selection. Because picking the best of 747 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 1.24 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 0.6% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.03) — the table below is truncated, but this summary covers all of them. How we test: methodology. The scoring contract is published in full; the parameters of each individual setup are not.
Top 20 of 674 eligible setups
Ranked by out-of-sample Sharpe. Full + out-of-sample columns, costs included. Hypothetical.
| # | Setup | TF | Total ret | Sharpe | Max DD | Win | Trades | α vs B&H | OOS Sharpe | OOS α | OOS trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Detrended Price Osc. | Weekly | >+999% | 0.77 | -42.7% | 68.8% | 173 | +2.0% | 1.28 | +8.5% | 55 |
| 2 | Stochastic RSI | Weekly | +389.5% | 0.61 | -24.6% | 80.4% | 46 | -2.5% | 1.02 | +1.1% | 17 |
| 3 | Williams %R | Weekly | +223.0% | 0.45 | -34.5% | 81.6% | 38 | -4.1% | 0.91 | -1.8% | 12 |
| 4 | Stochastic | Daily | +346.5% | 0.46 | -48.9% | 71.0% | 124 | -2.8% | 0.87 | +1.5% | 41 |
| 5 | Stochastic Momentum Index | Daily | +361.6% | 0.54 | -40.5% | 74.3% | 105 | -2.7% | 0.85 | -0.5% | 34 |
| 6 | Intraday Momentum Index | Daily | +308.0% | 0.45 | -49.2% | 67.1% | 76 | -3.1% | 0.83 | 0.0% | 25 |
| 7 | Murrey Math Lines | Daily | +388.4% | 0.49 | -35.5% | 77.2% | 79 | -2.5% | 0.73 | -0.5% | 25 |
| 8 | Projection Bands | Weekly | +271.0% | 0.48 | -40.5% | 69.4% | 49 | -3.6% | 0.73 | -3.1% | 14 |
| 9 | Connors RSI | Weekly | +229.9% | 0.42 | -44.1% | 73.4% | 64 | -4.0% | 0.71 | -2.1% | 22 |
| 10 | Projection Bands | Daily | +177.7% | 0.33 | -51.6% | 63.0% | 235 | -4.5% | 0.7 | -0.3% | 76 |
| 11 | Connors RSI-2 | Weekly | +280.7% | 0.48 | -40.0% | 74.2% | 66 | -3.5% | 0.69 | -2.8% | 20 |
| 12 | SMC: Liquidity Sweep | Daily | +510.9% | 0.53 | -46.7% | 76.5% | 102 | -1.6% | 0.66 | -2.1% | 31 |
| 13 | Demand Index | Weekly | +374.5% | 0.45 | -56.7% | 78.0% | 82 | -2.7% | 0.65 | -1.3% | 29 |
| 14 | Fibonacci Pivots | Weekly | +148.0% | 0.31 | -63.3% | 60.7% | 206 | -5.0% | 0.65 | -1.7% | 71 |
| 15 | Bollinger Mean-Reversion | Daily | +88.2% | 0.24 | -47.8% | 69.2% | 117 | -5.9% | 0.64 | -1.6% | 43 |
| 16 | Fibonacci Bands | Daily | +88.2% | 0.24 | -47.8% | 69.2% | 117 | -5.9% | 0.64 | -1.6% | 43 |
| 17 | Bollinger Breakout | Daily | +52.2% | 0.2 | -47.4% | 38.1% | 126 | -6.7% | 0.64 | -3.9% | 31 |
| 18 | TEMA 20/50 Cross | Daily | +506.9% | 0.54 | -25.2% | 53.1% | 147 | -1.6% | 0.63 | -1.8% | 42 |
| 19 | Demand Index | Daily | +479.1% | 0.46 | -46.2% | 64.0% | 386 | -1.8% | 0.62 | +0.3% | 125 |
| 20 | Order-Flow Reversion | Daily | +90.4% | 0.25 | -48.0% | 72.0% | 100 | -5.9% | 0.62 | -2.2% | 38 |
Hypothetical backtests with 0.08%/side costs. Not investment advice — see the full disclaimer.
These are historical backtests of mechanical rules. They are educational research, not investment advice, not a recommendation, and not tailored to you. Educational information only — not investment advice. Hypothetical backtested results; past performance does not guarantee future results. Trading involves risk of loss.