Vox's Trend Switchboard
Today’s Change (Mar 17, 2026)
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A symphony is an automated trading strategy — Learn more about symphonies here
About
A daily, rule-based, multi-asset trend-following system that switches between a Leveraged Risk-On basket and a Safe Haven basket, guided by momentum, moving-average/RSI-style signals, macro regimes, and risk controls across many ETFs.
- Every day, the system runs a large decision tree that checks several signals to decide the market regime and what to own next.
- Regime checks include trend signals in SPY (and SPY-relative tests), momentum screens, and volatility indicators. When momentum and trend are positive, the system favors a “Risk On” setup; when signals flip, it shifts toward a “Safe Haven” setup.
- The strategy defines two primary baskets for the regime switch: Leveraged Risk On Basket (SPXL, UDOW, TQQQ, SPXS) and Safe Haven Momentum Basket (UUP, TMF, DBC, UGL, IEO, XLU, VIXM, TMV). It also uses cash-like or treasury/short-maturity proxies (e.g., BIL, TIP) as stabilizers.
- Within each regime, the system screens many ETFs by short- to medium-term performance (moving-average return, cumulative return, etc.) and picks the top N assets to hold. Some screens use the last 10–20 days of returns; others use 20–60 day windows to evaluate relative strength.
- There are regime-conditional sub-strategies (e.g., “Risk Off – Fed is cutting rates,” “Bonds,” “Commodities,” “Safe Haven Momentum”) that group together assets by theme. Each sub-strategy produces a candidate list, which is then blended into the final allocation.
- The plan uses multiple overlay strategies (e.g., Pareto-based portfolio, volatility spikes, max drawdown screens) to prune or overweight assets, aiming to keep drawdowns in check while preserving upside when regimes flip back to risk-on.
- The final daily decision is a weighted mix of these sub-strategies, selecting top assets from each group and assigning weights (the logs show percentages like 40/100 in several filters) to craft a diversified but opportunistic portfolio.
- The risk management layer looks at drawdown and volatility signals, often using a “bottom/top” selection approach across groups to avoid concentration in any single asset class, while still enabling leverage when the signals are strongest.
- Tickers span equities, sector themes, dollar exposure, commodities, gold, oil & gas, and bonds, providing broad exposure so moves in markets (growth, inflation expectations, risk appetite, and macro policy) can be captured across regimes.
- In short, it’s a complex, multi-asset trend-following engine that tries to switch between aggressive growth bets and defensive hedges on a daily basis, guided by momentum, regime indicators, and risk controls, using a large universe of ETFs rather than a single market proxy.
Out-of-sample upside: ~37.5% annualized return vs SPY ~25%, achieved by daily regime-switching across a broad ETF universe that rotates between risk-on and safe havens with built-in risk controls.
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Invest in this strategy
OOS Start Date
Nov 4, 2023
Trading Setting
Daily
Type
Stocks
Category
Trend-following, momentum rotation, multi-asset allocation, risk management, regime-switching, daily rebalance
Tickers in this symphonyThis symphony trades 76 assets in total
Ticker
Type
AAPL
Apple Inc.
Stocks
ADBE
Adobe Inc.
Stocks
AGG
iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF
Stocks
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
Stocks
AMGN
Amgen Inc
Stocks
AMZN
Amazon.Com Inc
Stocks
AVGO
Broadcom Inc. Common Stock
Stocks
AXP
American Express Company
Stocks
BA
Boeing Company
Stocks
BIL
State Street SPDR Bloomberg 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF
Stocks