Does anything beat buy & hold on Western Digital (WDC)?
Every setup we tested on Western Digital (WDC) — 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 1.0 cleared the selection hurdle 0.96. Buy-and-hold benchmark: +14.1% CAGR over 48.1 years (+23.7% CAGR in the out-of-sample window).
Educational research from historical backtests — not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.
Western Digital (WDC): 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 757 indicator setups on Western Digital, of which 713 had enough history to qualify. Most stocks in our universe produce nothing that beats simply holding shares. Here, DEMA 30 Trend on the weekly timeframe outperformed buy-and-hold in both the full window and the held-out period, and its out-of-sample Sharpe of 1.0 cleared the multiple-testing hurdle of 0.96. A signal that survived 14.4 years of company-specific noise is worth documenting.
Read this as a record, not a promise. Out-of-sample alpha of +6.6% (full-window +2.9%) against a buy-and-hold CAGR of +14.1% came with a win rate of 41.9%, a maximum drawdown of -65.8%, and 160 trades — enough to measure, few enough that a handful of outcomes shaped the result. Only 8.8% of setups beat holding at all, so selection pressure is real even after the hurdle. Note the survivorship trap: WDC 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.
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.
DEMA 30 Trend
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 1.0 · alpha +6.6% · 37 trades over 14.4 yrs.
Gaussian Channel
What it is: A channel / envelope rule: it measures how far price has travelled from a moving reference and acts at the extremes. 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 0.97 · alpha +6.0% · 39 trades over 14.4 yrs.
TEMA 200 Trend
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 daily-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 0.97 · alpha +5.1% · 92 trades over 14.4 yrs.
Since publication — including if it loses
The setup is ahead so far — over a window this short that is mostly noise. Marked to market nightly from real prices, rules frozen at publication, as of 2026-10-26. Currently FLAT.
We tested 757 setups (indicator × parameters × timeframe) on Western Digital (WDC). Only setups with ≥30 trades qualify (713 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 757 tries mines even the holdout, the VALIDATED verdict additionally requires the top setup’s OOS Sharpe to clear a selection hurdle of 0.96 (√(2 ln N)/√T) AND positive alpha in both windows. Of the eligible setups, 8.8% had positive out-of-sample alpha (median OOS Sharpe 0.59) — 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 713 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 | DEMA 30 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.6 | -65.8% | 41.9% | 160 | +2.9% | 1.0 | +6.6% | 37 |
| 2 | Gaussian Channel | Weekly | >+999% | 0.5 | -72.4% | 42.0% | 174 | -1.1% | 0.97 | +6.0% | 39 |
| 3 | TEMA 200 Trend | Daily | >+999% | 0.5 | -81.5% | 35.5% | 330 | -2.3% | 0.97 | +5.1% | 92 |
| 4 | Hull MA 100 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.48 | -81.4% | 55.2% | 67 | -3.2% | 0.97 | +3.4% | 16 |
| 5 | DEMA 200 Trend | Daily | >+999% | 0.58 | -75.7% | 31.6% | 256 | +1.3% | 0.96 | +5.6% | 68 |
| 6 | FRAMA 100 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.53 | -85.6% | 47.2% | 218 | -0.2% | 0.95 | +1.5% | 69 |
| 7 | LSMA 200 Trend | Daily | >+999% | 0.58 | -72.3% | 42.7% | 288 | +1.5% | 0.94 | +4.2% | 84 |
| 8 | G-Channel | Daily | >+999% | 0.36 | -88.8% | 29.1% | 374 | -7.7% | 0.93 | +5.6% | 79 |
| 9 | Regularized EMA | Weekly | >+999% | 0.5 | -76.6% | 43.0% | 158 | -1.3% | 0.93 | +4.3% | 35 |
| 10 | Kaufman Adaptive MA | Weekly | >+999% | 0.43 | -87.4% | 45.7% | 173 | -4.5% | 0.93 | +3.3% | 41 |
| 11 | EMA-10 Trend | Weekly | >+999% | 0.48 | -82.3% | 43.2% | 227 | -1.9% | 0.91 | +4.1% | 57 |
| 12 | Disparity (10) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.48 | -82.3% | 43.2% | 227 | -1.9% | 0.91 | +4.1% | 57 |
| 13 | On-Balance Volume | Weekly | >+999% | 0.62 | -80.3% | 47.2% | 144 | +5.2% | 0.9 | +4.5% | 38 |
| 14 | Volume-Weighted EMA | Weekly | >+999% | 0.48 | -75.8% | 45.8% | 168 | -2.5% | 0.9 | +4.3% | 38 |
| 15 | RSI (7) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.53 | -72.7% | 43.9% | 187 | +0.6% | 0.9 | +3.6% | 43 |
| 16 | Elder Bull Power | Weekly | >+999% | 0.52 | -72.7% | 43.3% | 187 | -0.1% | 0.9 | +3.6% | 43 |
| 17 | Ehlers Decycler | Weekly | >+999% | 0.46 | -81.6% | 44.4% | 160 | -3.1% | 0.89 | +3.8% | 37 |
| 18 | Chande Momentum Osc. | Daily | >+999% | 0.56 | -73.1% | 39.6% | 818 | +1.4% | 0.88 | +4.3% | 240 |
| 19 | Positive Volume Index | Daily | >+999% | 0.42 | -98.6% | 27.2% | 114 | -5.6% | 0.88 | +3.5% | 26 |
| 20 | Disparity (20) | Weekly | >+999% | 0.47 | -83.7% | 44.3% | 158 | -2.5% | 0.88 | +3.2% | 39 |
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.