Does the Moving Average Crossover strategy beat buy & hold on Total US Market ETF (VTI)? (VTI · backtested honestly)
A rule that compares a fast moving average of price with a slow one and reads an up-trend while the fast average sits above the slow.
Over this period, Moving Average Crossover on Total US Market ETF (VTI) returned +67.0%, while simply buying and holding returned +71.6%. On just 2 trades, that's too thin to call a real edge — this result isn't scored a win or a loss. For the record it finished 4.6 points below buy & hold over this one window, with a worst drawdown of -19.3%; it traded 2 times and sat in cash about 30% of the time. It's a mechanism you test.
There isn't enough here to tell a signal from luck — too few trades or too little history. The honest fix is a longer window or a strategy that trades more, so there's a judgeable sample — not more tweaking, which only adds shots at luck. Until then, treat this as unscored — not a win, not a loss.
Run it yourself
Change the parameters and the window, then re-run — no account needed.
Change the rules? Open the Moving Average Crossover rules on Total US Market ETF (VTI) 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/total-market-etf-moving-average-crossover-backtest" width="360" height="340" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="Does the Moving Average Crossover strategy beat buy & hold on Total US Market ETF (VTI)?"></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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Put it to the proof the honest way — real costs, every loss, measured against simply holding. Free, no sign-up.
Prove it →A quality read to test yourself — never a tip, never a buy. The scarcity is the point: most names never clear the bar.
Open today's reads →Paste their exact claim and watch the honest engine put it to the test — free, losses and all.
Test the claim →an honest backtest — real costs on, measured against simply buying & holding
- • The strategy line is Moving Average Crossover on Total US Market ETF (VTI); the dashed line is simply buying and holding VTI. 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 →