The Californer - Backtested Strategies Announces BTS Strength Zones — Country ETFs Backtest Results

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A long-only, unleveraged tactical allocation model applied to a fixed universe of 39 country ETFs produced 24.8% CAGR versus 11.3% for buy-and-hold SPY over the 2003–2025 whole-calendar-year backtest.

SAN FRANCISCO - Californer -- During that 23-year period, a $10,000 starting value grew to $1,616,487 for the strategy versus $116,729 for SPY.

Time in Market was 98.0%, indicating near-continuous equity exposure rather than a defensive cash posture, while volatility was slightly higher at 19.0% versus 18.7% for SPY.

The drawdown profile was materially better than the benchmark's but still demanding. Maximum drawdown reached -31.3%, versus -55.2% for SPY. The strategy recovered its 2020 peak by December 9, 2020, while SPY's financial-crisis peak was not recovered until August 16, 2012. The strategy's longest underwater period lasted 519 calendar days during 2022–2023, compared with 1,773 days for SPY. The evidence supports shallower catastrophic loss and a shorter recovery burden, not immunity from prolonged drawdowns.

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The return advantage appeared in both SPY up years and SPY down years. In SPY up years, BTS Strength Zones produced 30.0% filtered CAGR versus 17.1% for SPY, with a smaller worst within-year drawdown but higher volatility. Across the three SPY down years—2008, 2018, and 2022—the strategy produced -5.0% filtered CAGR versus -21.0% for SPY, with materially lower volatility and drawdown.

The full-period result was supported across most, but not all, rolling windows. BTS Strength Zones beat SPY on CAGR in 85.5% of rolling three-year windows and 90.3% of rolling five-year windows, while producing a higher Sharpe ratio in 81.7% and 91.7%, respectively. Smaller maximum drawdowns appeared in 63.9% of three-year windows and 79.7% of five-year windows. The strategy's worst rolling CAGR remained positive at 3.4% over three years and 7.3% over five years, but periods of relative underperformance still occurred.

Backtest results follow the BTS Methodology, which sets common conventions for data and calendar alignment, execution pricing, missing-data and end-of-range handling, trading costs and spread-aware slippage, portfolio accounting, cash and dividend treatment, benchmark conventions, reporting windows, performance metric calculations, and, where reported, market-capacity screening. Strategy-specific rules, universes, eligibility, timing, sizing, and constraints are defined in each report.

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Read the full press release:
https://www.backtestedstrategies.com/articles/bts-strength-zones-country-etfs-backtest-results/

Access the backtest report:
https://www.backtestedstrategies.com/strategies/bts-strength-zones-country-etfs-backtest/

About Backtested Strategies
Backtested Strategies (BTS), operated by Marquantex LLC, is a financial research publisher built around the BTS Methodology, a standardized framework for testing trading strategies with stated rules, consistent assumptions, benchmark discipline, cost and slippage treatment, portfolio accounting, and clear interpretation so readers can evaluate market ideas through evidence rather than hype or unsupported claims.