Does anything beat buy & hold on Gasoline (RB)?
Every setup we tested on Gasoline (RB) — 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 1.03 did not clear the 1.30 selection hurdle (best-of-N luck cannot be ruled out). Buy-and-hold benchmark: +5.2% CAGR over 26.0 years (+12.3% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Gasoline: the winner beat buy-and-hold in both windows — and still can't shake the luck problem
In Gasoline, 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 747 indicator configurations on RB. The best, Bullish Engulfing on the weekly timeframe, beat buy-and-hold in both windows — +5.7% annualized edge over the full period, +12.0% out of sample against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +5.2%. Over 7.8 out-of-sample years it took 60 trades, won 68.3% of them, and drew down -32.5% at worst.
Here is the honest read. When you test 747 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 1.3, and this setup's out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.03 falls short. Statistically, we cannot distinguish it from the luckiest of hundreds of tries. It also has company: 16.0% of setups edged buy-and-hold, which tends to happen when one regime dominated the sample. Of everything tested, 663 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.
Bullish Engulfing
What it is: A market-structure rule: it reacts to swing structure and prior levels rather than to a smoothed average. 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 1.03 · alpha +12.0% · 15 trades over 7.8 yrs.
Zero-Lag LSMA
What it is: A trend-following rule: it holds while a smoothed trend reference is pointing up and goes flat when it turns. 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 0.9 · alpha +15.3% · 23 trades over 7.8 yrs.
Ehlers Cyber Cycle
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 0.86 · alpha +13.8% · 40 trades over 7.8 yrs.
Since publication — including if it loses
Buy-and-hold is ahead so far — we publish that too. That is the point. Marked to market nightly from real prices, rules frozen at publication, as of 2026-10-26. Currently FLAT.
We tested 747 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Gasoline (RB). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (663 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 1.3 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 16.0% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.34) — 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 663 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 | Bullish Engulfing | Weekly | >+999% | 0.59 | -32.5% | 68.3% | 60 | +5.7% | 1.03 | +12.0% | 15 |
| 2 | Zero-Lag LSMA | Weekly | +346.8% | 0.34 | -65.4% | 44.9% | 89 | +0.7% | 0.9 | +15.3% | 23 |
| 3 | Ehlers Cyber Cycle | Weekly | +690.2% | 0.41 | -65.5% | 52.2% | 134 | +3.0% | 0.86 | +13.8% | 40 |
| 4 | T3 10/40 Cross | Daily | >+999% | 0.51 | -45.4% | 38.2% | 76 | +5.8% | 0.85 | +10.1% | 24 |
| 5 | LSMA 100 Trend | Daily | >+999% | 0.52 | -38.9% | 37.7% | 212 | +5.2% | 0.85 | +7.1% | 67 |
| 6 | SMA 10/30 Cross | Daily | +433.3% | 0.37 | -54.6% | 37.5% | 120 | +1.5% | 0.82 | +9.4% | 38 |
| 7 | HMA 9/21 Cross | Weekly | >+999% | 0.63 | -43.6% | 47.4% | 78 | +10.5% | 0.81 | +11.2% | 24 |
| 8 | Stochastic (10,3) | Weekly | +495.5% | 0.38 | -73.0% | 47.6% | 166 | +1.9% | 0.8 | +10.9% | 50 |
| 9 | MACD | Weekly | +969.7% | 0.46 | -55.2% | 51.0% | 49 | +4.3% | 0.8 | +10.5% | 11 |
| 10 | Stochastic (20,5) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.55 | -46.0% | 43.0% | 86 | +7.6% | 0.79 | +10.5% | 25 |
| 11 | Negative Volume Index | Daily | +365.8% | 0.35 | -74.5% | 35.7% | 70 | +0.9% | 0.79 | +7.6% | 18 |
| 12 | Piercing Line | Daily | +9.4% | 0.09 | -50.6% | 45.8% | 131 | -4.9% | 0.79 | -2.7% | 40 |
| 13 | MACD-V | Weekly | +893.7% | 0.45 | -55.6% | 52.0% | 50 | +4.0% | 0.78 | +9.9% | 13 |
| 14 | Hull MA 30 Trend | Weekly | +961.9% | 0.48 | -44.1% | 42.9% | 77 | +4.3% | 0.78 | +8.0% | 22 |
| 15 | Hull MA 200 Trend | Daily | >+999% | 0.52 | -40.2% | 41.4% | 111 | +5.2% | 0.78 | +4.7% | 29 |
| 16 | Volume Oscillator | Daily | -40.4% | -0.01 | -84.4% | 47.0% | 362 | -7.2% | 0.78 | +0.8% | 94 |
| 17 | Fisher Transform | Weekly | >+999% | 0.47 | -40.0% | 50.4% | 127 | +5.0% | 0.77 | +10.0% | 36 |
| 18 | Percentage Price Osc. | Weekly | +837.6% | 0.45 | -45.6% | 54.2% | 48 | +3.7% | 0.77 | +9.2% | 11 |
| 19 | PPO Cross | Weekly | +837.6% | 0.45 | -45.6% | 54.2% | 48 | +3.7% | 0.77 | +9.2% | 11 |
| 20 | MAMA / FAMA | Daily | +258.2% | 0.32 | -55.4% | 36.4% | 143 | -0.1% | 0.75 | +6.3% | 41 |
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.