S11 IC Volatility Focus
Today’s Change (Mar 17, 2026)
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About
A daily-rebalanced, multi-layered equity strategy that combines base long exposure to broad/tech stocks with aggressive volatility hedges and selective leveraged bets to adapt to changing market risk.
What it tries to do in plain language:
- The strategy buys a core mix of broad market and tech-oriented ETFs to capture stock market gains when conditions look normal.
- It also includes a set of hedges that tend to do well when volatility (price swings) spikes, such as VIX-related ETFs and anti-beta funds. These act like insurance against sharp market drops.
- Several sub-strategies run in parallel, each with its own rules for what to own and how much weight to give it. Some blocks push more bullish bets on high-growth areas; others push more hedging or even short exposure on crowded bets when signals say risk is high.
- Signals come from simple, easy-to-understand checks like: is a popular tech index overburchased? is a volatility gauge high? is recent price volatility larger than usual? Are the long/short bets performing as expected over short windows? Are drawdowns getting too large? The system uses those signals to switch between groups and adjust weights.
- Weights are adjusted frequently (daily), so the mix changes as risk and opportunity change. The goal is to stay invested in equities but not get crushed when volatility spikes; the hedges should cushion losses while the core equity exposure still participates in up moves.
- The design relies on a large set of familiar and some less-common ETFs (for example QQQ, SPY, XLK, SMH for equities; UVXY/VIXY/VIXM for volatility; SVXY and BTAL for hedged or anti-beta positioning; SPXS/SOXL/SOXS and related 3x or opposing-betas for amplified bets). The overall risk is high given leverage and many moving parts, so it’s best suited for investors who are comfortable with complex rules and can tolerate swings in the short term.
Out-of-sample edge: 25.22% annualized return vs 19.58% S&P; Sharpe 1.84 vs 1.10; max drawdown 7.56% vs 18.76%; beta 0.43; Calmar 3.34. A hedged, volatility-aware, daily-rebalanced strategy delivering more upside with less risk than the S&P 500.
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Invest in this strategy
OOS Start Date
Sep 12, 2024
Trading Setting
Daily
Type
Stocks
Category
Volatility hedging, leveraged equities, multi-strategy, risk controls, daily rebalance, etf-based
Tickers in this symphonyThis symphony trades 24 assets in total
Ticker
Type
BTAL
AGF U.S. Market Neutral Anti-Beta Fund
Stocks
GLD
SPDR Gold Trust, SPDR Gold Shares
Stocks
IEF
iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF
Stocks
QQQ
Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1
Stocks
SCHD
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF
Stocks
SHY
iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF
Stocks
SMH
VanEck Semiconductor ETF
Stocks
SOXL
Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF
Stocks
SOXS
Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X ETF
Stocks
SPXL
Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bull 3x ETF
Stocks