Welcome to DMS | Dual Momentum Systems
A collection of disciplined, momentum-based investment strategies and allocation strategies built on one principle: excellent risk-adjusted returns. Published with real out-of-sample results alongside long backtests - nothing hidden, nothing cherry-picked.
Strong returns, earned with far less risk. Two examples, measured over the long term against industry benchmarks.
Turns $1,000 into - -
Turns $1,000 into - -
See all the Strategy Descriptions
Every number above is computed live from the same data feed that powers the rest of the site, and updates automatically after each month closes. Catalyst 300 uses Smart Leverage. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results - the biggest drawdown a strategy will experience is still to come.
Many strategy sites show you a name and a teaser until you pay. Here, every strategy's rules, complete track record, and statistics are open to everyone. Subscribing gets you the current month's allocations on day one instead of the 11th.
Sidestep the worst of bear markets, so recovering doesn't mean climbing out of a deep hole first.
A smoother ride is easier to stick with - and staying invested is where compounding actually happens.
Sharpe, Sortino, and drawdown numbers that stand up to scrutiny - not just headline returns.
Every strategy shows its real, live results next to a long backtest, so you can judge it for yourself.
Rules-based models that rotate into strength and step aside from weakness. Run them unleveraged, or with Smart Leverage for a more aggressive profile.
Tax-efficient, low-maintenance alternatives to a classic 60/40 - with better risk/reward and only annual rebalancing.
Leverage usually means bigger losses when things go wrong. Smart Leverage flips that: it applies leverage only when the odds are most in your favor, and steps back to safety when they're not.
The aim is simple - higher returns, not higher losses. Catalyst 300 above is Smart Leverage applied to the Catalyst strategy - the tile shows how that has compared with the S&P 500 since 2003, on both return and worst drawdown.
After a large month-end drawdown in the market being levered - the broad U.S. market for most strategies, the Nasdaq-100 for Catalyst - leaning in when recoveries have historically paid the most.
Opportunistic upside, not reckless risk. Leverage is used only when conditions favor it.
Offered on select tactical strategies, including the Catalyst, Triad and Global Navigator families.
The DMS website has detailed views, charts, metrics, and performance results for every strategy. You can compare strategies, see allocations, live snapshot tiles, and a leaderboard. Spend some time becoming familiar with the site and all it has to offer.
Dig into any single strategy's full history, risk metrics, drawdowns, and current holdings.
Put strategies head-to-head against each other, or against a benchmark like the S&P 500 or a 60/40.
Blend multiple strategies into your own custom portfolio, and see how the mix performs.
Hands-off investing
Prefer not to place trades yourself? Several DMS strategies are available for fully automated trading through the Autopilot app - it follows the strategy in your own brokerage account, on your schedule.
Autopilot is a separate, third-party platform. Availability and results depend on your own account.
From the founder
Hi, I'm Randy Harris - the person behind Dual Momentum Systems. I'm an ordinary investor who wanted to capture most of the market's upside while avoiding the worst of its drawdowns.
DMS started with an interest in Gary Antonacci's dual momentum work, and grew into a stable of excellent strategies that I use myself.
The DMS website is a great tool for looking at strategy performance, comparing them to benchmarks and other strategies - so much to take advantage of. Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the site and strategies, and reach out any time with questions or comments.
Thank you,
Randy
Nothing on this site is investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation to buy or sell any investment. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal; past performance does not guarantee future results. Performance figures shown are hypothetical, long-term backtested results.
Maximizing Risk-Adjusted Returns
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Returns use each fund's own trading history, as of the market close shown. A dash means the fund does not have enough trading history for that period. Expense ratios are net expense ratios as published by each fund sponsor. For information only, not investment advice.
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Estimate after-tax returns by applying capital-gains tax to each calendar year's net positive gains. Short-term and long-term tax shares come from each strategy's Tax Efficiency rating.
How the short-term and long-term gain figures are estimated, and what they do and do not include.
ST and LT gains / yr are the average share of portfolio value turned into taxable gain each year, measured against the balance at the time of each sale. Deferred (unsold) is the embedded gain in positions still held, as a share of the current balance.
These are all shares of realized gain, which is not the same basis as the Return Contribution column in Allocations & Contribution: that one averages each month's weight times return equally, so over a long history it weights an early month the same as a recent one, while gains are actual money and compound. The two will not agree, and neither is wrong for its own purpose.
Tax is charged only on gains actually realized in each year, so a position held across a year boundary defers its tax and keeps compounding. Deferred (unsold) is the embedded gain you would owe on if you liquidated today; it is not charged to the after-tax figures.
Capital losses carry forward and offset the highest-rated gains first.
Gold trusts are collectibles under IRC 408(m): their long-term gains are taxed at the lesser of 28% and your ordinary rate, not at 15% or 20%.
Gold at 28% cap is shown twice over: as a share of long-term gains, which is what the collectibles rate actually applies to, and as a share of all gains, which is usually much smaller.
LT Gains % is the long-term share of gross gains, for the selected period. The Taxable Account toggle taxes returns using the strategy's full-history LT share instead, so the two can differ when a strategy's turnover has changed over time.
Realization estimate, FIFO tax lots. Monthly weight changes are converted into purchases (each opening a lot with its own cost basis and acquisition date) and sales (consuming lots oldest first), so one sale can produce both a long-term and a short-term piece.
Holding period follows the IRS rule that long-term requires MORE than one year, so an exactly-12-month hold is short term.
Weight changes smaller than 10 bps of portfolio value are treated as accounting noise between the strategy and ETF return series rather than trades: their gain is still counted, but they are not counted as lots.
At the end of the window, remaining open lots are marked as if liquidated now and classified by their own age, so the counts include positions you still hold.
For blended portfolios this works from net ETF weights and may under-count sleeve-level offsetting trades.
Distributions are treated as price appreciation, so interest-bearing sleeves are modeled more favorably than they would actually be taxed.
Nothing from this website or it's reports should be construed as investment advice, an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to buy or sell any investment. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of money you invest, past performance does not guarantee future performance. The biggest drawdown a strategy will experience is still to come.
The investment strategies and their investment selections presented within this site and reporting are free for your personal use, noting the disclosure above. These strategies are not allowed to be used by any CFA, CFP, RIA, CPA, CLU, CHFC, IAFP, NAPFA, PFS or any other investment professional, please inquire for reasonable licensing rates.
I'm a finance and accounting person by education and trade, having worked everywhere from very large corporations to very small companies - doing financial reporting and accounting work, with some IT support mixed in along the way. I grew up in Tacoma, WA, and have lived in Phoenix, AZ since 2003. Blessed to have a great wife and kids.
Dual Momentum Systems is the personal project that grew out of a long-standing desire - as an ordinary investor myself - to capture most of the market's upside while avoiding the worst of its drawdowns. It really took flight when I discovered Gary Antonacci's Global Equities Momentum work, which sparked my interest and passion for creating tactical asset allocation models - this was the genesis of DMS.
Everything on this site - the strategies, the backtests, the tools - is free for personal use. Strategies deemed Premium will not show allocations until after the 10th of the month; you can uncover them during the first 10 days by subscribing. DMS was built to be the kind of resource I wish I'd had when I started thinking seriously about my own portfolio - and I use it all the time myself.
I hope you enjoy the site and become a frequent visitor, finding it a useful tool.
New here? This is the short tour, in the order most people find useful.
gives you an overview of every strategy in one place: what each one holds and what it was built to do.
When one catches your interest, click on the strategy cover art and it will take you directly to that strategy in the .
The Strategy View holds the full history for the strategy you have selected: monthly and annual returns, drawdowns, risk metrics, and the current allocation. Use the benchmark selector there to set one other strategy or index alongside it.
When you want more than two side by side, use . Same data, built for weighing options against each other rather than studying one in depth.
Pick a single strategy, one of the model portfolios, or build a custom blend of your own.
Then open the , found under Planning Tools on the Strategy View. Enter your account value and it shows exactly what you should be holding, in dollars and shares, for a single strategy or a blend.
Signals are computed from month-end closing prices. The new allocation is published here once the month closes and the data has finalized, and you trade into it on the first or second trading day of the new month. Then you hold until the next month end.
Most months call for small adjustments, and some call for no trade at all.
The Provisional row shows what next month's allocation would be if the month ended today. It is there so a change does not surprise you. It is not a trade instruction, and it can still reverse in the final days of the month.
Allocations for the new month are finalized the evening of the last trading day of the prior month.
Free members can see all Premium allocations and returns from the 11th of the month through the end of the month. They are restricted from the 1st through the 10th.
Premium members can also subscribe to automated month-end summary and allocation emails for up to three strategies, sent once the numbers are finalized.
Still have questions? The covers execution, trading costs, taxes, and where the data comes from.
Dual Momentum Systems exists to make disciplined, momentum-based investing transparent and approachable — with an emphasis on avoiding prolonged downturns. Strategies are published with their actual out-of-sample performance alongside long backtests — nothing hidden, nothing cherry-picked.
The foundational principle behind all of it is the same: excellent risk-adjusted returns. Strong returns matter, but how those returns are earned — and how much risk it took to earn them — matters even more.
More detail on the mission, each individual strategy, and these concepts is being added here.
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Most ETFs only trade back to their real launch date — some as recent as the 2010s or 2020s. To show how the underlying asset classes behaved through earlier market regimes (the 1970s stagflation, the 1987 crash, the dot-com bust, 2008), DMS extends each ETF's return history further back using a documented waterfall of proxies — index data, mutual funds, and other public sources that closely represent the same asset class before the ETF itself existed. Each proxy segment covers only the period before the live ETF took over, stitched together with no smoothing or interpolation at the handoff.
This is the same extended history used internally to build and stress-test every DMS strategy — it's what lets a strategy's backtest reach back to 1980 even when some of its holdings are ETFs that only launched in the last few years. The chart above shows the growth of a hypothetical $1,000 in each selected ticker directly, with no fees or trading costs applied — it is not run through any DMS strategy's allocation rules.
A blank gap in a line means no data — proxy or live — is currently available for that ticker in that period. More extended history (including daily-granularity data for a subset of tickers) is on the way and will be added here as it's ready.
Every strategy on DMS, plus the outside models tracked here. Open any one of them in the Strategy View.
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Use ▲▼ to reorder, Top/Bottom to jump — uncheck to hide a tile.
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Profit Farmer is not a recommended strategy by DMS | Dual Momentum Systems. It is provided as infotainment only, in response to requests from members who followed it in the past.
This strategy uses 3× leveraged ETFs and has a history of:
This page is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Leveraged ETFs are not suitable for most investors.
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Monthly dashboard PDFs for this strategy.
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Build a portfolio from one or more strategies, set the dollar amount, and see how many shares of each ETF to buy.
| ETF | Weight | Price | Target $ | Shares | Actual $ |
|---|
Shares shown to 2 decimal places (fractional). Prices from Yahoo Finance, updated when the page loaded.
Project how your savings grow over time, compounded at the selected strategy's historical pre-tax CAGR. For a taxable account, the tax rate is the strategy's historical tax drag under your tax settings.
Hypothetical projection. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Project portfolio survival with an inflation-adjusted annual withdrawal. Uses the blended strategies' trailing 5-year CAGR, with a 60/40 reference for comparison.
Hypothetical projection at constant returns. Real returns vary year-to-year - sequence-of-returns risk means actual outcomes will differ. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Estimate Required Minimum Distributions from a tax-deferred account (Traditional IRA, 401(k), 403(b), 457(b)) using the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. Projects RMDs over time assuming your account grows at the blended strategies' trailing 5-year CAGR.
| Age | Start balance | Factor | RMD | % of balance |
|---|
Uses the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (effective 2022, in force through 2026). This table applies to most account owners. If your sole beneficiary is a spouse more than 10 years younger, the Joint and Last Survivor Table applies instead (lower RMDs); inherited accounts use the Single Life Table. RMDs begin at age 73 (rising to 75 in 2033). This is a hypothetical estimate at a constant growth rate, not tax advice — consult a tax professional for your situation.
Best/worst per row highlighted when comparing to more than one benchmark. Hover any metric name for a description. All Metrics are computed from EOM returns.
Best value per row highlighted green, worst red. Withdrawal rates use rolling 30-year retirement windows over each strategy's full history, independent of the selected date range, and require 35 years of data. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Best/worst per row highlighted. Hover any metric name for a description. All Metrics are computed from EOM returns.
Best value per row highlighted green, worst red. Withdrawal rates use rolling 30-year retirement windows over each strategy's full history, independent of the selected date range, and require 35 years of data. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Upload a CSV of your own monthly returns to compare against DMS strategies. By default your data stays in this browser session only — never shared with other users, and cleared when you close this tab. Premium members can check the box below to save an import permanently to their account.
Date,Return 2020-01-31,0.0234 2020-02-29,-0.0512 2020-03-31,0.0187 2020-04-30,0.0625 ...
YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-MM, MM/DD/YYYY, or MM/YYYY0.0234) or percent (2.34 / 2.34%) — auto-detectedBlend any combination of strategies into a custom portfolio. It will appear in the strategy selector and all analysis views.
No custom portfolios yet.
Tiles above are computed from EOM returns. Current MTD and Current Day are live from Yahoo Finance.
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Avg Alloc = time-weighted average over period. Return Contribution = each ETF's share of total strategy return.
| Month | Strategy Return | Strategy Total | Benchmark Return | Benchmark Total |
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Strategy returns sourced from Tiingo. Equity values rebased to $10,000 at the start of the selected period.
Newest months at top. Current-month allocations for Premium strategies unlock for free users on the 11th. The Provisional row projects next month's allocation as if the month ended today (Premium).
Full available history for each selected strategy, shown by decade — not limited to the date range above.
Choose which sections to include in the PDF booklet. Each section is captured exactly as it appears on screen. Use your browser's print dialog to "Save as PDF" or send to a printer.