Benchmark
Buy and hold
The simplest strategy and the hardest bar to clear. Every rule on this site is compared with it, on the same market, over the same period and with the same costs.
Rules
- Buy on the first candle of the period at the open.
- No sales until the end of the period.
- Costs: a single purchase only, with its fee and slippage.
Code for the lab
buy when true
You can change the code right in the lab: the numbers in input(…) become sliders.
Results on eight markets
This is buy and hold itself: every other rule is compared with it.
| Market | CAGR | Drawdown | Trades | Buy and hold: CAGR | Buy and hold: drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOEX Russia Index | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sberbank | — | — | — | — | — |
| Gazprom | — | — | — | — | — |
| Gold, $ per ounce | — | — | — | — | — |
| Brent crude, $ per barrel | — | — | — | — | — |
| Bitcoin | — | — | — | — | — |
| Ether | — | — | — | — | — |
| VN-Index | — | — | — | — | — |
| Market | CAGR | Drawdown | Trades | Buy and hold: CAGR | Buy and hold: drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOEX Russia Index | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sberbank | — | — | — | — | — |
| Gazprom | — | — | — | — | — |
| Gold, $ per ounce | — | — | — | — | — |
| Brent crude, $ per barrel | — | — | — | — | — |
| Bitcoin | — | — | — | — | — |
| Ether | — | — | — | — | — |
| VN-Index | — | — | — | — | — |
The numbers are calculated in your browser from fresh source candles.
Default parameters, daily candles, a fee and slippage of 0.05% each per trade, no return on cash out of the market, prices without dividends. The test starts once all of the rule’s indicators are calculated.
What research says
On average, frequent trading loses to passive holding. Barber and Odean (2000) studied 66,465 accounts in the US over 1991–1996: the most active traders earned 11.4% a year, while the market made 17.9%.
Markets grow unevenly: in our table, every market shows its worst drawdown over the whole data history, and you have to sit through it to get the average result.
Original source: Barber, Odean. Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth. Journal of Finance, 2000
When the rule breaks
- Long years without growth: Japan’s Nikkei 225 took more than 30 years to return to its 1989 peak.
- Falls of 50–80% take nerve, and many people sell at the bottom.
- Prices without dividends understate the result: for Russian stocks, dividends are a sizable part of the return, which is why the MCFTR total return index grows faster than the MOEX Russia Index.