Does anything beat buy & hold on Microsoft (MSFT)?
Every setup we tested on Microsoft (MSFT) — 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.
No setup beat simply holding once tested honestly. We say so plainly.
Its best setup only beat buy-and-hold in one window — a regime artifact, not a strategy. Buy-and-hold benchmark: +6.2% CAGR over 3.9 years (-16.4% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
MSFT: we tested 1,507 setups and none beat simply holding Microsoft
For Microsoft (MSFT), we ran 1,507 indicator configurations against a plain buy-and-hold benchmark, and none of them earned the right to replace it. Individual stocks carry idiosyncratic risk — earnings surprises, guidance changes, sector rotation — that indicators built on price history cannot see coming. The best-looking setup, Schaff Trend Cycle on the 4-hour timeframe, ranked at the top in-sample but delivered an out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.73, short of our hurdle of 3.49. Buy-and-hold returned +6.2% annualized over the test period; the top strategies mostly captured pieces of that same move while adding trading friction.
How to read this honestly: when you test 1,507 setups and keep the best one, something will always look impressive by chance alone. That is why we require the survivor to clear 3.49 out of sample. Schaff Trend Cycle managed 1.73, with out-of-sample alpha of +31.2% across 1.2 years and 49 trades, and only 28.1% of everything we tested beat the benchmark on unseen data — roughly what luck would produce. None of this predicts anything: the regime that generated these numbers can shift, and single stocks shift faster than most. Treat this page as a record of what failed under honest testing, not a forecast.
Every figure above is computed from our own backtests — nothing is estimated or invented. Hypothetical results; not investment advice.
The least-bad setups — shown with their failure numbers
Nothing here earned a verdict — these are the best of a losing field, published so you can see exactly how "best" still failed.
Schaff Trend Cycle
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): Faster MACD-of-stochastics cycle — buy up through 25, exit above 75. Signals are evaluated at 4-hour-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side, long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 1.73 · alpha +31.2% · 16 trades over 1.2 yrs.
Williams %R
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): Buy when %R(14) crosses up from below -80, exit above -20. Signals are evaluated at 4-hour-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side, long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 1.36 · alpha +32.6% · 16 trades over 1.2 yrs.
Standard Error Bands
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): Buy a breakout above the upper Standard Error Band around the LSMA. Signals are evaluated at 1-hour-bar close, the position changes on the NEXT bar, 0.08% cost per side, long/flat only — no leverage, no shorting.
Out-of-sample (last ~30% of the window, never used to pick this setup): Sharpe 1.25 · alpha +28.8% · 19 trades over 0.9 yrs.
Since publication — including if it loses
The forward record is just getting started — the gap between the two is the honest score. Marked to market nightly from real prices, rules frozen at publication, as of 2026-07-02. Currently FLAT.
We tested 1,507 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Microsoft (MSFT). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (1,365 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 1,507 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 3.49 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 28.1% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.03) — the table below is truncated, but this summary covers all of them. Full recipe: methodology · the engine’s contract lives in the repo as STRATEGY_METHODOLOGY.md.
Top 20 of 1,365 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 | Schaff Trend Cycle | 4-Hour | +8.6% | 0.32 | -11.0% | 51.0% | 49 | -4.0% | 1.73 | +31.2% | 16 |
| 2 | Williams %R | 4-Hour | +36.3% | 0.7 | -11.8% | 65.9% | 44 | +2.2% | 1.36 | +32.6% | 16 |
| 3 | Standard Error Bands | 1-Hour | -16.7% | -0.98 | -23.9% | 39.1% | 69 | -14.7% | 1.25 | +28.8% | 19 |
| 4 | Bollinger 50 (x2.5) Break | 1-Hour | -2.1% | -0.21 | -10.3% | 39.5% | 38 | -9.3% | 1.23 | +26.3% | 10 |
| 5 | DMI Direction | Weekly | >+999% | 0.81 | -55.9% | 45.9% | 85 | -6.0% | 1.14 | -3.0% | 18 |
| 6 | ZLEMA 100 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.59 | -79.9% | 52.8% | 89 | -14.6% | 1.12 | -5.4% | 20 |
| 7 | Stochastic (10,3) | 4-Hour | -1.5% | 0.05 | -29.7% | 41.7% | 204 | -6.6% | 1.11 | +33.5% | 50 |
| 8 | Predictive Ranges | Weekly | >+999% | 0.63 | -71.4% | 50.5% | 105 | -11.9% | 1.1 | -3.5% | 32 |
| 9 | DeMarker (21) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.74 | -79.6% | 43.8% | 64 | -8.2% | 1.08 | -4.2% | 12 |
| 10 | Ichimoku (fast) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.66 | -71.1% | 55.4% | 92 | -11.0% | 1.06 | -5.8% | 25 |
| 11 | FRAMA 10/30 Cross | Weekly | >+999% | 0.67 | -73.8% | 58.8% | 148 | -11.0% | 1.01 | -8.0% | 52 |
| 12 | Awesome Oscillator | Weekly | >+999% | 0.73 | -78.7% | 53.7% | 41 | -8.1% | 0.99 | -4.5% | 10 |
| 13 | ALMA 10/30 Cross | Weekly | >+999% | 0.64 | -78.2% | 45.3% | 86 | -11.4% | 0.99 | -6.3% | 22 |
| 14 | Derivative Oscillator | 4-Hour | -18.8% | -0.46 | -32.8% | 38.8% | 116 | -11.4% | 0.98 | +27.4% | 27 |
| 15 | KAMA 200 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.79 | -65.6% | 43.1% | 51 | -5.8% | 0.98 | -3.6% | 10 |
| 16 | ROC (20) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.68 | -82.2% | 50.5% | 93 | -9.7% | 0.98 | -5.0% | 19 |
| 17 | Momentum (20) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.68 | -82.2% | 50.5% | 93 | -9.7% | 0.98 | -5.0% | 19 |
| 18 | CCI Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.71 | -70.1% | 40.4% | 89 | -9.1% | 0.98 | -6.3% | 24 |
| 19 | Williams Alligator | Weekly | >+999% | 0.54 | -74.0% | 55.8% | 95 | -14.7% | 0.98 | -6.8% | 24 |
| 20 | Stochastic RSI | Daily | >+999% | 0.45 | -72.3% | 66.6% | 302 | -17.4% | 0.98 | -8.3% | 95 |
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.