A defense-first strategy: it owns broad U.S. stocks when trends are healthy, but shifts toward cash, bonds, managed futures, and defensive sectors when warning signs appear.

This strategy splits money into two parts and checks the market every day. 80% is the main engine. If key market gauges look weak—S&P 500, Nasdaq, or risky corporate bonds falling below trend—it moves into a defensive mix of cash, bonds, managed futures, and defensive sectors like healthcare, utilities, and consumer staples. If markets look healthy, it buys the broad stock market, and may add a small leveraged S&P 500 fund when momentum is especially strong. The other 20% always stays in a “safer” shopping list of bonds and defensive sectors, buying the 2 that look most beaten down recently.

Out-of-sample, this defense-first strategy delivers higher risk-adjusted returns and far smaller losses than the S&P 500: ~24.4% vs ~18.8% annualized, ~0.75% vs ~2.03% max drawdown, with stronger Sharpe and Calmar.