A daily trend-following strategy: if the broad U.S. market is rising, it buys the 5 strongest precious-metals funds; if the market is falling, it bets against the S&P 500; otherwise it parks in T-bills.

Each day, the strategy asks one big question: is the U.S. stock market in an uptrend or a downtrend? It uses SPY, a fund that tracks the S&P 500, and compares its average price over the last 50 days with its average over the last 200 days. If the shorter average is higher, that suggests the market is trending up. In an uptrend, it buys 5 precious-metals investments—mostly gold, silver, and mining stocks—that have had the smallest recent worst drops over the last 90 days. In a downtrend, it switches to SH, which rises when the S&P 500 falls. If the trend signal is exactly neutral, it sits in very short-term Treasury bills (BIL).

Diversified regime-switching strategy: in uptrends, invest in precious metals; in downtrends, hedge with SH or cash. Out-of-sample: ~19% annualized return vs SPY ~23.9%, beta ~0.74, Sharpe ~0.70—offers inflation hedge and portfolio diversification.