Market crashes
Every severe decline in market history has something to teach about risk, emotion, and the value of a rule. Below are the big ones — each a completed study in how the 200-day signal navigated it, applied to historical data.
Seven studies, one careful method. Each walks through how the strategy's cash signal behaved as the decline unfolded — not as a prediction, but as a mechanical response to trend breakdown — with the chart, the drawdown numbers, and the honest caveats.
The mania of the 1920s gave way to the deepest decline on record. The strategy took roughly half the pain — and was at new highs by 1936.
Read the study →An oil embargo, surging inflation, and a 21-month slide. To cash in March 1973, with T-bills paying 7% while the strategy waited.
Read the study →The largest single-day percentage drop in history. Half the drawdown of buy-and-hold, and back at new highs before the market.
Read the study →Three years unwinding a technology mania. Sector by sector, the rule walked to cash gradually — and was at new highs by January 2004.
Read the study →A credit crisis became a market collapse. Sectors began stepping to cash in December 2007, before the worst of it.
Read the study →The fastest bear market on record, followed by one of the fastest recoveries. Real protection on the way down — with an honest look at what a V-shape costs.
Read the study →Stocks and bonds fell together as rates rose, the rare year a 60/40 portfolio offered little shelter. Cash, for once, paid real money.
Read the study →The point of a rule is to act before the worst of a decline — and, just as important, to signal when to step back into the market in a systematic way once the trend repairs itself. No forecast, no emotion. See how the framework works.