Question
Both seed strategies assume gold and SPX regimes alternate. What do they do in windows where both fall — the regime their backtest curves quietly exclude?
Why it matters
Every DD claim in the wiki (qs-rotation-beats-both-buyhold, gold-spx-switching-outperforms-both-assets) rests on the rotation always having a decent asset to rotate INTO. Candidate both-down regimes: Mar-2020 (gold fell with equities into the margin-call flush), Sep-2008 weeks (gold dropped ~30% peak-to-trough before it “worked”), 2013 gold crash, 1983–2000 gold bear (rotation into gold = slow bleed while SPX ripped — the mirror problem). If rotation bleeds in both-down windows, the published max-DD numbers are window artifacts and the strategy’s real risk is the one nobody plots.
First cheap check
Enumerate months 1977+ where both assets’ trailing 3-mo returns are negative; overlay each rotation strategy’s position and P&L in those months. A table, not a study — it tells us whether this deserves a full study page.
Status notes
- 2026-10-08: opened. Neither proposed study covers this; add as an explicit section to whichever study runs first.