Does anything beat buy & hold on Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL)?
Every setup we tested on Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL) — 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 1.41 cleared the selection hurdle 0.98. Buy-and-hold benchmark: +15.5% CAGR over 46.2 years (+36.1% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL): 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 764 indicator setups on Texas Pacific Land Corporation, of which 722 had enough history to qualify. Most stocks in our universe produce nothing that beats simply holding shares. Here, KAMA 10/30 Cross on the daily timeframe outperformed buy-and-hold in both the full window and the held-out period, and its out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.41 cleared the multiple-testing hurdle of 0.98. A signal that survived 13.9 years of company-specific noise is worth documenting.
Read this as a record, not a promise. Out-of-sample alpha of +7.5% (full-window +0.6%) against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +15.5% came with a win rate of 47.6%, a maximum drawdown of -50.4%, and 170 trades — enough to measure, few enough that a handful of outcomes shaped the result. Only 17.9% of setups beat holding at all, so selection pressure is real even after the hurdle. Note the survivorship trap: TPL 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.
Top setups as mechanical rules
Exactly as the backtest defined them — no discretionary steps, no hidden filters.
KAMA 10/30 Cross
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): MA variant — Kaufman adaptive-MA cross; long while fast leads slow. Signals are evaluated at daily-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 1.41 · alpha +7.5% · 46 trades over 13.9 yrs.
Hull Suite
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): Hull Moving Average trend — long while the 55-period Hull MA is rising. Signals are evaluated at daily-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 1.4 · alpha +8.9% · 71 trades over 13.9 yrs.
Pivot Point SuperTrend
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): SuperTrend anchored on recent pivot points instead of HL2 - long while the pivot SuperTrend is up (2/3/10). Signals are evaluated at daily-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 1.34 · alpha +9.5% · 20 trades over 13.9 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 LONG.
We tested 764 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (722 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 764 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 0.98 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 17.9% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.95) — 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 722 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 | KAMA 10/30 Cross | Daily | >+999% | 0.77 | -50.4% | 47.6% | 170 | +0.6% | 1.41 | +7.5% | 46 |
| 2 | Hull Suite | Daily | >+999% | 0.82 | -44.3% | 44.9% | 256 | +2.4% | 1.4 | +8.9% | 71 |
| 3 | Pivot Point SuperTrend | Daily | >+999% | 0.87 | -53.3% | 48.6% | 107 | +4.8% | 1.34 | +9.5% | 20 |
| 4 | Guppy Multiple MA | Daily | >+999% | 0.83 | -54.1% | 38.9% | 175 | +3.3% | 1.34 | +8.9% | 44 |
| 5 | KDJ | Weekly | >+999% | 0.75 | -35.9% | 49.5% | 222 | +0.8% | 1.33 | +4.7% | 62 |
| 6 | ROC (30) | Daily | >+999% | 0.77 | -50.4% | 39.5% | 441 | +1.5% | 1.31 | +6.2% | 120 |
| 7 | CMO (30) | Daily | >+999% | 0.77 | -50.4% | 39.5% | 441 | +1.5% | 1.31 | +6.2% | 120 |
| 8 | Momentum (30) | Daily | >+999% | 0.77 | -50.4% | 39.5% | 441 | +1.5% | 1.31 | +6.2% | 120 |
| 9 | Stoch RSI (fast) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.74 | -55.0% | 47.5% | 240 | +1.1% | 1.31 | +5.3% | 67 |
| 10 | Supertrend (7,3) | Daily | >+999% | 0.74 | -69.4% | 44.7% | 215 | +0.3% | 1.29 | +4.2% | 41 |
| 11 | SMC: Fair Value Gap | Weekly | >+999% | 0.68 | -69.9% | 48.3% | 118 | -0.1% | 1.28 | +9.0% | 25 |
| 12 | DeMarker (21) | Daily | >+999% | 0.84 | -53.1% | 42.6% | 427 | +3.5% | 1.28 | +5.3% | 129 |
| 13 | FRAMA 30 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.77 | -38.6% | 51.1% | 231 | +0.6% | 1.28 | +1.9% | 70 |
| 14 | Keltner Breakout | Daily | >+999% | 0.83 | -39.7% | 45.5% | 176 | -0.8% | 1.28 | -5.4% | 42 |
| 15 | Trend Magic | Weekly | >+999% | 0.79 | -54.1% | 45.6% | 125 | +2.9% | 1.27 | +6.9% | 33 |
| 16 | Relative Volatility Index | Daily | >+999% | 0.83 | -47.8% | 43.9% | 626 | +2.8% | 1.27 | +6.2% | 165 |
| 17 | ROC (60) | Daily | >+999% | 0.81 | -56.3% | 38.6% | 254 | +3.1% | 1.27 | +6.2% | 62 |
| 18 | Regularized EMA | Weekly | >+999% | 0.79 | -45.6% | 50.0% | 140 | +2.9% | 1.27 | +5.7% | 35 |
| 19 | WMA 15/60 Cross | Daily | >+999% | 0.84 | -54.9% | 46.5% | 144 | +3.5% | 1.27 | +5.5% | 38 |
| 20 | CMO (21) | Daily | >+999% | 0.79 | -57.3% | 40.6% | 527 | +2.0% | 1.27 | +4.8% | 147 |
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.