Does anything beat buy & hold on Eversource Energy (ES)?
Every setup we tested on Eversource Energy (ES) — 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 1.0 cleared the selection hurdle 0.91. Buy-and-hold benchmark: +6.7% CAGR over 53.5 years (+10.1% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Eversource Energy (ES): 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 760 indicator setups on Eversource Energy, of which 724 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 1.0 cleared the multiple-testing hurdle of 0.91. A signal that survived 16.1 years of company-specific noise is worth documenting.
Read this as a record, not a promise. Out-of-sample alpha of +3.7% (full-window +1.2%) against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +6.7% came with a win rate of 58.6%, a maximum drawdown of -57.2%, and 314 trades — enough to measure, few enough that a handful of outcomes shaped the result. Only 0.7% of setups beat holding at all, so selection pressure is real even after the hurdle. Note the survivorship trap: ES 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 1.0 · alpha +3.7% · 94 trades over 16.1 yrs.
TRIX
What it is: A momentum rule: it holds while rate-of-change stays positive and steps aside when it rolls over. Long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting. The parameters we tested are not published.
How it was tested: signals evaluated at daily-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 0.93 · alpha +2.0% · 100 trades over 16.0 yrs.
MA Envelope
What it is: A channel / envelope rule: it measures how far price has travelled from a moving reference and acts at the extremes. 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 +0.7% · 35 trades over 16.1 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 2026-09-07. Currently LONG.
We tested 760 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Eversource Energy (ES). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (724 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 760 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 0.91 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 0.7% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.09) — 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 724 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% | 0.56 | -57.2% | 58.6% | 314 | +1.2% | 1.0 | +3.7% | 94 |
| 2 | TRIX | Daily | >+999% | 0.44 | -44.6% | 49.9% | 341 | -0.8% | 0.93 | +2.0% | 100 |
| 3 | MA Envelope | Weekly | +548.9% | 0.31 | -60.1% | 70.7% | 99 | -3.1% | 0.91 | +0.7% | 35 |
| 4 | Connors RSI | Weekly | +341.9% | 0.28 | -48.5% | 69.6% | 112 | -3.8% | 0.83 | -0.6% | 39 |
| 5 | Projection Bands | Weekly | +536.3% | 0.33 | -57.9% | 66.3% | 89 | -3.1% | 0.82 | -1.9% | 27 |
| 6 | Know Sure Thing | Daily | +946.0% | 0.36 | -44.9% | 48.6% | 360 | -2.1% | 0.8 | +0.1% | 99 |
| 7 | Bollinger Mean-Reversion | Weekly | +762.8% | 0.39 | -54.8% | 82.2% | 45 | -2.5% | 0.78 | -3.0% | 12 |
| 8 | Fibonacci Bands | Weekly | +762.8% | 0.39 | -54.8% | 82.2% | 45 | -2.5% | 0.78 | -3.0% | 12 |
| 9 | Stochastic Fast (5,3) | Weekly | +488.0% | 0.29 | -44.9% | 53.8% | 370 | -3.3% | 0.75 | -1.0% | 107 |
| 10 | Holy Grail Confluence | Daily | +379.8% | 0.28 | -58.1% | 72.1% | 68 | -3.7% | 0.71 | -1.0% | 24 |
| 11 | WaveTrend (8/6/4) | Daily | +631.3% | 0.31 | -60.0% | 74.5% | 192 | -2.8% | 0.69 | -0.4% | 63 |
| 12 | Intraday Momentum Index | Daily | +342.5% | 0.26 | -60.0% | 68.1% | 144 | -3.8% | 0.69 | -1.3% | 45 |
| 13 | Order-Flow Reversion | Weekly | +735.5% | 0.39 | -52.3% | 84.1% | 44 | -2.6% | 0.69 | -3.9% | 11 |
| 14 | Murrey Math Lines | Daily | +333.7% | 0.26 | -67.0% | 75.0% | 140 | -3.8% | 0.68 | -2.0% | 46 |
| 15 | Connors RSI-2 | Weekly | +302.2% | 0.27 | -55.6% | 64.7% | 116 | -4.0% | 0.68 | -2.7% | 38 |
| 16 | Stochastic RSI | Weekly | >+999% | 0.52 | -27.4% | 74.4% | 82 | -0.9% | 0.67 | -3.0% | 27 |
| 17 | RSI Mean-Reversion | Daily | +196.3% | 0.24 | -55.9% | 71.2% | 66 | -4.6% | 0.67 | -4.1% | 23 |
| 18 | Morning Star | Weekly | -10.2% | 0.03 | -68.1% | 56.0% | 125 | -6.9% | 0.66 | -4.4% | 42 |
| 19 | QQE | Weekly | >+999% | 0.44 | -68.2% | 52.8% | 161 | +0.6% | 0.64 | +1.2% | 49 |
| 20 | Demand Index | Weekly | +236.8% | 0.22 | -64.1% | 67.2% | 128 | -4.4% | 0.64 | -0.7% | 48 |
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.