Broadcom — trading strategies, backtested
Over this window, none of these beat buy & hold — exactly the kind of result this is built to show you honestly, losses and all. This compares how 10 mechanical strategies behaved on historical Broadcom (AVGO) price data. It is not a view on Broadcom as an investment, and not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold it — or to use any strategy on it.
Of the 9 with enough data to judge, 0 beat buy & hold · 1 didn't have enough data to judge yet. Results are simulated backtests over the last ~5 years, shown whole — losses included — not live or future performance.
Listed in a neutral catalog order — not ranked by performance. Combinations we can't judge yet — too little data — are grouped separately below.
Here, “beat” means only a higher total return than buy & hold over this one past window — not risk-adjusted, not luck-checked. The out-of-sample, walk-forward and luck checks live on each individual backtest.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. This is an educational, analytical tool — not investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. You make all decisions and execute on your own broker.
HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER- OR OVER-COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN.
10 strategies on Broadcom
Go long while a fast moving average is above a slow one (a 'golden cross') and flat when it drops back below (a 'death cross'). A classic trend-following rule: it tries to hold the up-trends and step aside in down-trends. It lags turning points by design and tends to whipsaw in sideways markets.
The MACD line is the difference between a fast and a slow EMA; the signal line is an EMA of that. Go long when MACD is above its signal line, flat when below. A momentum/trend rule that reacts a little faster than a raw MA crossover.
RSI measures how stretched recent gains are versus losses (0–100). Buy when RSI falls below an 'oversold' level, betting on a bounce, and exit when it recovers past a chosen level. A mean-reversion rule — it fights the trend, so it can be run over by strong moves.
Larry Connors' short-term dip-buy: only when price is above its long-term (200-day) average, buy when a very fast RSI(2) is deeply oversold, and exit when price closes back above a short average. A trend-filtered mean-reversion rule.
Bollinger Bands sit a number of standard deviations around a moving average. Buy when price closes below the lower band (statistically stretched down) and exit when it reverts to the middle band. Mean-reversion; a hard stop caps the trades where price keeps falling.
The opposite bet to reversion: buy when price closes ABOVE the upper band, treating the break as the start of a move, and exit back at the middle band. Trend/breakout style — strong in trending markets, choppy in ranges.
The 'turtle' rule: buy when price closes above the highest high of the last N bars, and exit when it closes below the lowest low of the last M bars. Channels EXCLUDE the current bar (no look-ahead). Classic breakout trend-following.
The Stochastic %K shows where the close sits within the recent high–low range (0–100). Buy when it is oversold and exit when it becomes overbought. A range/mean-reversion oscillator.
Time-series (absolute) momentum: go long while the asset's own trailing 12-month return — skipping the most recent ~1 month (the '12-1' rule, which drops the short-term reversal) — sits above the average of its OWN history, and flat otherwise. It measures the asset against ITSELF over time; it does not rank or compare securities. A slow trend rule with a long (~2-year) warm-up, prone to crash and whipsaw stretches. A mechanism to test, not a prediction or a recommendation.
Too few trades or too little history over this window to judge honestly. You can still run each one yourself over any period you choose.
Backtesting is one stage of preparing to trade, not the finish line. The full discipline runs five: Understand, Test, Stress-test, Forward-test, then Decide — eyes open. Most ideas should die in the first three, and every stage is a place to stop, for free.
See the five stages →