Thesis
Dual-momentum is a trend-following strategy with a simple mandate: hold the strongest trending names by 60-day return, and exit when the trend breaks. It operates over a 24-name large-cap universe spanning tech (AAPL, MSFT, NVDA), financials (JPM, V, MA), healthcare (JNJ, UNH), staples (PG, KO, WMT), and energy (XOM, CVX). The design is deliberately concentrated on liquid, well-covered equities — a sensible sandbox for a momentum rule that lives or dies on clean price signals.
Recent Activity
The most striking feature of the current state is inactivity. The last six scheduled runs — from 2026-07-27 through 2026-08-03 — each report 0 trades executed, 0 rejected, with the book sitting at $10,000 cash and $10,000 total. In other words, the strategy is currently 100% in cash and has been for at least a week.
That is not necessarily a failure. A dual-momentum rule that finds no qualifying uptrends should step aside rather than force positions. But it does mean the live account is presently earning nothing, and none of the backtest's edge is being expressed right now.
Backtest Performance
Over 451 days the backtest returned 23.5% (final equity $12,349.63, ~12.5% CAGR), with a Sharpe of 0.95 and a max drawdown of 15.67%. Two numbers deserve scrutiny:
- Win rate of 28.79% across 136 trades. This is low in absolute terms but characteristic of momentum — a minority of large winners carrying many small losers. It is not a red flag on its own, but it means results depend heavily on a few trades.
- Turnover of 2,638%. That is heavy churn. Fees totalled only $136 here, but at realistic cost and slippage assumptions this level of trading could erode the edge materially.
Validation
This is where caution is warranted: validation did not pass. Across four walk-forward folds, three were positive and one — fold 2 (Jan–Jul 2025) — lost 7.31% with a Sharpe of -1.05 and a 17.15% drawdown. The out-of-sample return was a respectable 13.34% (OOS Sharpe 2.15), and the Probabilistic Sharpe Ratio of 0.893 is encouraging. But the Deflated Sharpe Ratio of 0.476 — which penalises for the 6 trials run — sits below the conventional 0.5 confidence threshold. That deflation is precisely why the gate failed: once you account for multiple testing, the evidence of a genuine edge is borderline rather than convincing.
Balanced Take
Strengths: a coherent, well-understood thesis; a positive out-of-sample stretch; disciplined risk behaviour that goes to cash rather than overtrading in the absence of signals.
Risks: a failed validation gate, a punishing fold-2 loss showing the strategy can bleed in choppy regimes, very high turnover, and a thin win rate that concentrates outcomes in few trades. The current all-cash posture underlines the point — this is a strategy that only works when trends are present, and right now it sees none.
Dual-momentum is worth keeping live on a paper book to gather more out-of-sample evidence, but the failed DSR gate means it is not yet a candidate for real capital.