What are your conclusions?

I had explained my conclusions at the start of this thread, but let me restate them in baseball terms.

The strategy where you got out only if ALL 3 bear catchers turned bearish had a batting average of zero percent at keeping you out of bear markets since 2009.

Over the past 15 years, there were 6 times that the market declined 15% or more. Using the above strategy dragged you through through the full brunt of the market decline all 6 times. Your drawdown was just as severe as that of a buy and hold investor all 6 times.

So that strategy has been a clear failure as a bear detector.

How about the strategy where you got out if ANY ONE of the bear catchers turned bearish? That one was able to limit your drawdown to 10% or less 3 out of the 6 times. So you can say it has a batting average of 50% when it comes to keeping you out of bear markets. Not that great.

And there's a heavy price to pay for this 50% batting average. As a result of all the whipsaws, you wound up with less than half the money and half the Safe Withdrawal Rate as your buy and hold friends.

Take a look at this year so far. S&P 500 is returning 10.2% year to date, whereas someone using the second strategy above is only up 4.5% YTD after being whipsawed 3 times by NH/NL flipping from bullish to bearish and vice versa.

For all the detailed numbers and the periods of the market declines, see my original post at the top of this thread.

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