Does the RSI Reversion strategy beat buy & hold on S&P 500 ETF (SPY)? (SPY · backtested honestly)
RSI measures how stretched recent gains are versus losses on a 0-100 scale — a gauge of stretch, not a prediction of a turn.
Over this period, RSI Reversion on S&P 500 ETF (SPY) returned +14.0%, while simply buying and holding returned +78.5% — it lagged buy & hold by 64.5 points, with a worst drawdown of -13.7%. It traded 5 times and sat in cash about 90% of the time. It's a mechanism you test.
It lagged buy & hold over this window — that's a result, and a backtest you can kill for free just did its job. Re-tuning this same idea until it looks better only adds another shot at looking good by luck, so the honest next move is a fresh one: test a different strategy on S&P 500 ETF (SPY), or build your own — free. Most ideas die cheaply right here, and that's exactly how the rare one that holds up gets found.
Or stop here — walking away from an idea that didn't beat simply holding is a result, not a failure.
Run it yourself
Change the parameters and the window, then re-run — no account needed.
Change the rules? Open the RSI Reversion rules on S&P 500 ETF (SPY) in the no-code builder — the same rules tested here — and make them your own.
Open in the builder →A live badge that re-runs itself and links back here. Free to embed on any blog, newsletter or forum — it shows the honest result, beat or lagged.
<iframe src="https://stratsemble.com/embed/sp500-etf-rsi-backtest" width="360" height="340" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="Does the RSI Reversion strategy beat buy & hold on S&P 500 ETF (SPY)?"></iframe>See which strategies actually beat buy & hold — and which only look like they do.
Free, in seconds, no sign-up. Put any famous strategy to the proof the honest way — real costs, every loss shown, measured against simply holding — so a tip, a guru, or your own hope can't fool you.
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- See if it's an edge, or just luck
- Read today's names that cleared every check
Put it to the proof the honest way — real costs, every loss, measured against simply holding. Free, no sign-up.
Prove it →Paste their exact claim and watch the honest engine put it to the test — free, losses and all.
Test the claim →Check a strategy against the real drawdown and profit-target rules of a prop-firm evaluation.
Put it through →an honest backtest — real costs on, measured against simply buying & holding
- • The strategy line is RSI Reversion on S&P 500 ETF (SPY); the dashed line is simply buying and holding SPY. Beating the dashed line is the whole point — many strategies don't.
- • Max drawdown is the worst peak-to-trough fall you'd have sat through. A higher return with a much deeper drawdown is not obviously better.
- • Every fill assumes next-open execution with costs & slippage on — no acting on prices you couldn't have known.
- • A small number of trades means a small sample. Treat a great-looking result on a handful of trades with suspicion.
This is a hypothetical backtest of a well-known mechanism on past data. It is not advice, not a prediction, and not a claim that the strategy works. We hold no funds and place no orders. The value here is the ability to test an idea honestly — see where it would have helped, and where it would have hurt — before you ever risk real money on your own broker.
How this is computed → · who's behind it · where a backtest fits
See what actually beats buy & hold — most don't, here are the rare few that do →