Does anything beat buy & hold on United Airlines Holdings (UAL)?
Every setup we tested on United Airlines Holdings (UAL) — 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 1.01 did not clear the 1.47 selection hurdle (best-of-N luck cannot be ruled out). Buy-and-hold benchmark: +6.0% CAGR over 20.4 years (+25.2% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
UAL: The Best Setup Beat Buy-and-Hold — and Still Might Be Luck
United Airlines Holdings lands in the awkward middle of our results. Of 748 indicator setups tested on UAL, the strongest — Zero-Lag MACD on the weekly timeframe — beat buy-and-hold in both the training and out-of-sample windows, adding +12.6% annual alpha against a buy-and-hold baseline of +6.0%. For an individual stock, that matters less than it sounds. Single names run on earnings surprises, management turnover, and idiosyncratic shocks that no historical pattern is obliged to survive. A setup that worked here worked on one company's history, once — and the companies whose histories ended badly aren't in anyone's backtest.
The honest read: the out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.01 came from 83 trades over 6.1 years, with a 49.4% win rate and a -85.9% maximum drawdown — a genuinely profitable record. But when you pick the best of 748 attempts, the winner is expected to look good by chance alone. Our selection hurdle for this asset is 1.47, and this setup did not clear it, so we cannot distinguish it from the luckiest of hundreds of tries. Only 1.8% of setups beat buy-and-hold at all. Regimes shift, and past performance predicts nothing about what comes next.
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.
Zero-Lag MACD
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): MACD built on zero-lag EMAs for faster signals - long while the zero-lag MACD line is above its signal. Signals are evaluated at weekly-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 1.01 · alpha +12.6% · 25 trades over 6.1 yrs.
Zero-Lag MACD
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): MACD built on zero-lag EMAs for faster signals - long while the zero-lag MACD line is above its signal. Signals are evaluated at weekly-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 1.01 · alpha +12.6% · 25 trades over 6.1 yrs.
MA Envelope
Mechanical rule (exactly as backtested): Percent envelope around an EMA — buy the dip below the lower band, exit back at the mean. Signals are evaluated at weekly-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 0.92 · alpha +9.7% · 25 trades over 6.1 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 2026-06-29. Currently FLAT.
We tested 748 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on United Airlines Holdings (UAL). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (624 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 748 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 1.47 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 1.8% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.25) — 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 624 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 | Zero-Lag MACD | Weekly | +534.9% | 0.42 | -85.9% | 49.4% | 83 | +3.5% | 1.01 | +12.6% | 25 |
| 2 | Zero-Lag MACD | Weekly | +534.9% | 0.42 | -85.9% | 49.4% | 83 | +3.5% | 1.01 | +12.6% | 25 |
| 3 | MA Envelope | Weekly | +664.4% | 0.43 | -89.8% | 74.3% | 70 | +4.5% | 0.92 | +9.7% | 25 |
| 4 | Zero-Lag LSMA | Weekly | +454.3% | 0.41 | -89.3% | 54.3% | 70 | +2.7% | 0.9 | +7.5% | 18 |
| 5 | Stochastic | Daily | -12.8% | 0.22 | -92.8% | 74.0% | 96 | -6.8% | 0.84 | +4.1% | 32 |
| 6 | Accelerator Oscillator | Daily | +27.0% | 0.25 | -94.6% | 41.3% | 303 | -4.9% | 0.84 | +4.0% | 89 |
| 7 | Demand Index | Weekly | +325.7% | 0.38 | -90.9% | 69.5% | 59 | +1.3% | 0.84 | +1.4% | 18 |
| 8 | Volume Zone Oscillator | Daily | >+999% | 0.6 | -59.8% | 45.5% | 477 | +12.8% | 0.83 | +2.3% | 149 |
| 9 | Stochastic (20,5) | Daily | +92.1% | 0.29 | -81.9% | 42.5% | 374 | -2.8% | 0.8 | +2.2% | 105 |
| 10 | Projection Bands | Daily | -56.4% | 0.12 | -94.6% | 65.5% | 174 | -10.1% | 0.78 | -0.4% | 60 |
| 11 | Woodie Pivots | Weekly | +78.0% | 0.27 | -87.2% | 50.2% | 225 | -3.2% | 0.77 | +0.1% | 69 |
| 12 | Stochastic RSI | Daily | +309.2% | 0.37 | -80.3% | 65.8% | 149 | +1.1% | 0.77 | -3.7% | 49 |
| 13 | Bullish Harami | Daily | +88.6% | 0.25 | -67.3% | 48.2% | 218 | -2.9% | 0.76 | -7.8% | 52 |
| 14 | Chande Forecast Osc. | Weekly | +209.2% | 0.34 | -89.8% | 50.8% | 122 | -0.3% | 0.75 | +0.1% | 34 |
| 15 | TEMA 20/50 Cross | Daily | +194.9% | 0.34 | -91.2% | 45.8% | 120 | -0.6% | 0.75 | -0.8% | 34 |
| 16 | Fisher Center-of-Gravity | Daily | +1.4% | 0.17 | -84.9% | 47.6% | 515 | -6.0% | 0.75 | -3.1% | 162 |
| 17 | Projection Bands | Weekly | +0.6% | 0.22 | -84.3% | 73.5% | 34 | -6.0% | 0.74 | -2.4% | 12 |
| 18 | Williams %R | Daily | -17.3% | 0.2 | -93.0% | 71.2% | 132 | -7.0% | 0.73 | -1.9% | 45 |
| 19 | Delta Volume Rising (CVD proxy) | Weekly | +189.2% | 0.32 | -81.8% | 43.6% | 101 | -0.7% | 0.73 | -5.9% | 34 |
| 20 | Bollinger 10 (x1.5) Break | Weekly | +164.5% | 0.36 | -41.8% | 46.6% | 73 | -1.1% | 0.73 | -13.5% | 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.