Drawdown Dip Buyer + 8% Target on Alpaca
Wait for a 10% drawdown from the 20-day high, buy it, and take profit at +8%. Deployed to your own Alpaca account — no code, your assets never leave the broker.
Setup on Alpaca
- Connect Alpaca with your API keys — paper and live accounts are both supported.
- Validate any strategy against Alpaca paper first: same rules, simulated money, live data.
- Promote to the live account when paper behavior matches the backtest.
- Each deployed strategy runs in its own sleeve with independent cash.
- Guardrails check every order: price bands, notional caps, and a global pause.
The strategy
- WHEN the market opens · IF not invested AND the 20-day drawdown is worse than −10% · THEN buy with 98% of the sleeve
- WHILE invested · a managed limit order rests at entry price × 1.08
Good for: assets that sell off hard and recover — it monetizes volatility without chasing strength.
Watch out: no stop-loss: if the dip keeps dipping, the position rides it down until the +8% target is eventually reached or the strategy is stopped; trade counts are low, so single trades dominate results.
Strongest backtests for this strategy
| ETF | CAGR | max DD | trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAS | 28.5% | −65.3% | 18 |
| SOXX | 25.9% | −39.3% | 19 |
| TECL | 18.7% | −76.3% | 18 |
| QLD | 16.5% | −62.0% | 12 |
| ROM | 15.8% | −66.3% | 13 |
| SPUU | 14.8% | −41.4% | 10 |
| SSO | 13.5% | −41.6% | 9 |
| SOXL | 13.3% | −88.6% | 17 |
Top-8 by CAGR shown of 59 tested — hindsight selection; see the full table including the losers.
Build it from blocks (or type it in English), backtest it on 5.5 years of minute data in seconds, tweak any parameter, then paper trade it on live data. No card, no broker needed to start.
Frequently asked questions
How do I automate dip buyer on Alpaca?
Connect Alpaca to DeployQuant (trade & read permissions only), pick the Drawdown Dip Buyer + 8% Target template or describe it in English, backtest it on your chosen ETF, allocate cash, and confirm live trading. The strategy then runs every session in its own sleeve inside your Alpaca account.
What counts as a 10% dip?
The engine computes the worst peak-to-trough move within the last 20 sessions; when it's deeper than −10%, the entry condition is met. Both the window and the threshold are editable parameters.
Backtests are hypothetical, computed by DeployQuant's engine on minute-resolution consolidated US market data (2021-01-04 to 2026-07-17, $10,000 starting capital, no margin, fees and slippage not modeled) and do not guarantee future results. Nothing on this page is investment advice. Live trading involves risk of loss.