Profit Farmer w/Gold cover art

Profit Farmer w/Gold

Other Strategies
Results over the full published history, 1991 to September 2026. Net of trading friction.
CAGR29.0%
Maximum drawdown-68.2%
MAR ratio0.42
History35 years (429 months)

Profit Farmer w/Gold is a version of Profit Farmer with 3x leveraged gold (SHNY) added as a sixth candidate. Each month it ranks six 3x leveraged ETFs by their trailing two-month return: emerging markets (EDC), U.S. small caps (URTY), the Nasdaq-100 (TQQQ), long-term Treasuries (TMF), U.S. real estate (DRN) and gold (SHNY). It holds the top three. Position sizes come from Minimum Variance optimization on a daily-return covariance matrix, so the three holdings are rarely equal, and a pick that adds risk without adding diversification can be sized to zero.

Gold is there for the months the original five-fund lineup handles worst, when stocks and long bonds are falling together. In those months the base universe can only rank one weak asset against another, while gold gives the ranking something with a different driver to rotate into. When gold is not among the three strongest, the strategy runs exactly like Profit Farmer.

Everything else is unchanged: the same two-month lookback, the same three holdings, and a full rebalance every month. It is always fully invested, with no absolute momentum test, no cash and no defensive sleeve, so every position is a daily-reset 3x fund. Drawdowns can be deep and fast. Profit Farmer w/Gold suits investors who understand what daily-reset leverage does in a sustained decline and want to hold it as a small, high-octane part of a broader plan rather than as a core holding.

Performance in detail

Growth of $10,000 (log scale)

Drawdown from previous high

Calendar-year returns

Selected range Jan 1991 to Sep 2026

PortfolioCAGRMax DDUlcerUPISortinoMAR
Profit Farmer w/Gold29.0%-68.2%19.151.381.560.42
QQQ15.6%-81.1%36.370.361.190.19
S&P 50011.1%-51.0%13.810.621.240.22
60/408.8%-32.3%6.660.921.530.27

What the record shows

From Jan 1991 through Sep 2026, Profit Farmer w/Gold compounded at 29.0% a year after trading costs. $10,000 invested at the start grew to about $88,713,078.

That is 13.4 points a year more than QQQ, its default benchmark, over the same months, and it out-returned QQQ in 2 of the 4 decades in the record.

Its deepest decline was 68.2%, from a peak in Dec 2021 to a low in Oct 2022, and it was back to its old high by Sep 2025.

Return is only half the picture. The Ulcer Performance Index measures return against the depth and length of drawdowns, and on it Profit Farmer w/Gold scores 1.38, ahead of QQQ at 0.36.

In the 145 months the S&P 500 fell, Profit Farmer w/Gold still made money in 33% of them.

Since 2000

The modern half of the record, with the dot-com bust, 2008, the long zero-rate decade and the 2022 rate shock all inside it.

Jan 2000 to Sep 2026CAGRMax DDUlcerUPISortinoMAR
Profit Farmer w/Gold27.3%-68.2%20.881.221.410.40
QQQ8.8%-81.1%41.950.170.710.11
S&P 5008.1%-51.0%15.890.390.880.16
60/406.6%-32.3%7.620.621.110.20

Return by decade

Annual return1990s*2000s2010s2020s*
Profit Farmer w/Gold+34.0%+28.5%+31.4%+19.8%
QQQ+38.2%-6.4%+17.8%+21.0%
S&P 500+20.7%-1.0%+12.9%+15.3%
60/40+15.4%+2.1%+9.4%+9.4%

* Partial decade, annualized over the months available.

Through the hard stretches

Total return over each period, start of the first month to the end of the last.

PeriodPFgQQQS&P 50060/40
Dot-com bear marketSep 2000 to Sep 2002+52.4%-79.7%-44.8%-23.5%
Global financial crisisNov 2007 to Feb 2009-31.9%-49.7%-51.0%-32.3%
COVID crashFeb 2020 to Mar 2020-11.6%-12.9%-19.6%-11.9%
2022 rate shockJan 2022 to Dec 2022-65.4%-32.6%-18.2%-15.9%

How it behaves month to month

Since Jan 1991Worst 12 monthsPositive monthsPositive when S&P 500 fellCorrelation to S&P 500
Profit Farmer w/Gold-66.2%62%33%0.41
QQQ-67.3%61%15%0.83
60/40-27.5%66%6%0.98

Every figure is net of trading costs and computed from the same monthly data as the rest of the site, over the months all the portfolios shown have in common (Jan 1991 to Sep 2026). Returns before an ETF's launch come from a matching index, as explained in where the data comes from. Backtests are hypothetical and are not a promise of future results.

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