Does anything beat buy & hold on Platinum (PL)?
Every setup we tested on Platinum (PL) — 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 in both windows — but can't be told apart from selection luck.
Beat buy-and-hold in both the full window and out-of-sample but its OOS Sharpe 0.78 did not clear the 1.29 selection hurdle (best-of-N luck cannot be ruled out). Buy-and-hold benchmark: +5.6% CAGR over 26.7 years (+9.4% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Platinum: the winner beat buy-and-hold in both windows — and still can't shake the luck problem
In Platinum, buy-and-hold is a harder benchmark than it looks: roll costs drag on returns, macro regimes flip the rules mid-game, and prices can go nowhere for years. Against that backdrop, we ran 749 indicator configurations on PL. The best, Stochastic on the weekly timeframe, beat buy-and-hold in both windows — +0.2% annualized edge over the full period, +4.3% out of sample against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +5.6%. Over 8.0 out-of-sample years it took 32 trades, won 78.1% of them, and drew down -35.0% at worst.
Here is the honest read. When you test 749 setups and keep the best one, the winner looks good by construction — even on pure noise. Our correction for that selection effect sets a Sharpe hurdle of 1.29, and this setup's out-of-sample Sharpe of 0.78 falls short. Statistically, we cannot distinguish it from the luckiest of hundreds of tries. It also has company: 3.7% of setups edged buy-and-hold, which tends to happen when one regime dominated the sample. Of everything tested, 670 produced enough trades to grade at all. Macro regimes rotate, and a rule tuned to one rarely survives the next. Past performance 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.
Stochastic
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 0.78 · alpha +4.3% · 14 trades over 8.0 yrs.
Zero-Lag MACD
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 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 0.77 · alpha +7.3% · 37 trades over 8.0 yrs.
Connors 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 0.76 · alpha +1.0% · 19 trades over 8.0 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 2026-10-19. Currently LONG.
We tested 749 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Platinum (PL). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (670 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 749 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 1.29 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 3.7% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.07) — 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 670 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 | Stochastic | Weekly | +350.9% | 0.43 | -35.0% | 78.1% | 32 | +0.2% | 0.78 | +4.3% | 14 |
| 2 | Zero-Lag MACD | Weekly | +534.6% | 0.45 | -44.8% | 47.1% | 119 | +1.6% | 0.77 | +7.3% | 37 |
| 3 | Connors RSI | Weekly | +78.1% | 0.23 | -55.0% | 69.8% | 63 | -3.4% | 0.76 | +1.0% | 19 |
| 4 | Detrended Price Osc. | Weekly | +9.5% | 0.12 | -72.8% | 60.6% | 155 | -5.2% | 0.72 | +5.6% | 42 |
| 5 | MA Envelope | Weekly | +118.4% | 0.26 | -55.7% | 64.3% | 56 | -2.6% | 0.7 | +2.6% | 22 |
| 6 | Price Volume Trend | Daily | +387.6% | 0.39 | -54.1% | 40.3% | 119 | +0.5% | 0.66 | +4.8% | 18 |
| 7 | Stochastic (20,5) | Weekly | +370.3% | 0.4 | -56.8% | 46.5% | 99 | +0.4% | 0.66 | +4.4% | 29 |
| 8 | Fisher Center-of-Gravity | Daily | +157.1% | 0.3 | -51.9% | 50.1% | 737 | -2.0% | 0.64 | +1.7% | 224 |
| 9 | Twiggs Money Flow | Daily | +220.8% | 0.31 | -54.5% | 43.1% | 144 | -1.2% | 0.63 | +4.2% | 19 |
| 10 | Intraday Momentum Index | Daily | +143.1% | 0.3 | -55.5% | 62.3% | 114 | -2.3% | 0.63 | +0.7% | 39 |
| 11 | Fisher Center-of-Gravity | Weekly | +354.5% | 0.44 | -40.7% | 52.1% | 142 | +0.3% | 0.62 | +1.3% | 38 |
| 12 | Projection Bands | Weekly | +93.8% | 0.24 | -57.4% | 66.7% | 48 | -3.1% | 0.62 | +1.1% | 17 |
| 13 | Stochastic RSI | Weekly | +94.4% | 0.24 | -65.8% | 64.4% | 45 | -3.1% | 0.61 | +0.8% | 14 |
| 14 | On-Balance Volume | Daily | +472.4% | 0.41 | -43.5% | 45.1% | 142 | +1.2% | 0.59 | +3.3% | 19 |
| 15 | Stochastic Slow (21,5) | Weekly | +236.1% | 0.34 | -56.3% | 46.6% | 103 | -0.9% | 0.58 | +2.2% | 28 |
| 16 | Bullish Engulfing | Weekly | +285.8% | 0.43 | -34.1% | 61.5% | 52 | -0.4% | 0.57 | -0.3% | 16 |
| 17 | Trade Volume Index | Daily | +489.9% | 0.42 | -43.5% | 45.7% | 140 | +1.3% | 0.56 | +2.3% | 21 |
| 18 | Fisher Transform | Weekly | +210.2% | 0.31 | -54.3% | 40.9% | 132 | -1.2% | 0.55 | +1.9% | 36 |
| 19 | Projection Bands | Daily | +17.8% | 0.13 | -78.1% | 61.0% | 254 | -5.1% | 0.54 | -0.6% | 89 |
| 20 | Murrey Math Lines | Daily | +31.2% | 0.15 | -72.1% | 72.7% | 66 | -4.7% | 0.52 | -0.9% | 24 |
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.