DeployQuantQQQ trading strategies, backtested
Invesco QQQ Trust: tracks the Nasdaq-100, a tech-heavy growth index. Every DeployQuant template run on QQQ over 5.7 years of minute data, same engine, same window, sorted by return.
QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, a tech-heavy growth index. From 2021-01-04 to 2026-10-02 it returned 16.7% a year in the test, which turned $10,000 into $24,265. It also fell 34.23% from 2021-11-19 to 2022-11-03 and took until 2023-12-12 to get back to the old high. Twelve strategy templates were run on it with the same engine and the same window. None of them beat holding the fund on CAGR. Eleven of the twelve had a shallower maximum drawdown than holding.
The best template was weekly 7% target at 16.52% CAGR and a 19.41% drawdown. It finished $24,053, which is $212 short of buy-and-hold. The next two were monthly cycle at 14.73% and RSI(2) snapback at 14.17%. The worst was the drawdown dip buyer at 5.37%, which made four trades and won all four.
QQQ rose in five of the six calendar years in the window and fell in one. That shape explains most of the table below. Any rule that spends time in cash has to be right about the one bad year to make up for being absent in the five good ones, and in this window no rule did enough of that. The run is a single window of 5.7 years with no fees in the headline numbers, so the ranking describes this stretch of QQQ and is not a forecast.
| Strategy | CAGR | max DD | Sharpe | trades | win rate | final value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly Entry + 7% Target | 16.5% | −19.4% | 0.90 | 106 | 31% (+1 open) | $24,053 |
| First-to-Last Day of Month | 14.7% | −36.1% | 0.77 | 69 | 61% (+1 open) | $22,014 |
| RSI(2) Dip Snapback | 14.2% | −14.3% | 0.98 | 164 | 69% | $21,396 |
| Golden Cross (SMA 50/200) | 13.6% | −22.2% | 0.88 | 2 | 50% (+1 open) | $20,793 |
| 200-Day SMA Regime Filter | 12.9% | −19.9% | 0.92 | 10 | 20% (+1 open) | $20,067 |
| SMA-200 Trend + 15% Trailing Stop | 11.3% | −26.7% | 0.75 | 4 | 50% (+1 open) | $18,463 |
| SMA 10/50 Trend | 9.0% | −20.8% | 0.68 | 18 | 39% (+1 open) | $16,425 |
| 3-Month Momentum Switch | 8.2% | −21.5% | 0.65 | 12 | 50% (+1 open) | $15,727 |
| EMA 12/26 Trend | 7.8% | −23.9% | 0.61 | 22 | 41% (+1 open) | $15,430 |
| 20-Day Momentum + Trailing Stop | 7.8% | −26.5% | 0.61 | 8 | 63% | $15,425 |
| RSI(14) Mean Reversion | 6.4% | −24.4% | 0.47 | 15 | 73% | $14,276 |
| Drawdown Dip Buyer + 8% Target | 5.4% | −28.6% | 0.41 | 4 | 100% | $13,501 |
| Buy & hold QQQ | 16.7% | −34.2% | 0.83 | – | – | $24,265 |
What each template did with the Nasdaq-100
Buy-and-hold is the reference. It gained 28.4% in 2021, lost 31.7% in 2022, then gained 53%, 25.1%, 20.4% and 22.1% in 2023, 2024, 2025 and the part of 2026 in the data. The Sharpe ratio was 0.83. Against that, the top of the table is close and the bottom is far away.
Weekly 7% target made 106 round trips with a 31% win rate. The win rate looks poor and the profit factor of 1.79 explains why it still worked: the average win was 7.07% and the average loss was 1.83%. Winners are capped at the 7% target and losers are cut by Thursday afternoon, so the shape is many small losses and a minority of capped wins. Its Sharpe of 0.90 was the highest among the top group except the RSI(2) template and the 200-day filter. In 2022 it lost 15.5% while the fund lost 31.7%. In 2021 it gained 16.2% against 28.4% for holding and in 2023 it gained 40.7% against 53%. It was exposed 84.1% of the time. It beat holding in 2022 and 2024.
Monthly cycle holds from the first session of each month to the last, 95.2% of the time. It returned 14.73% and had the deepest drawdown of any template at 36.07%, slightly worse than holding. Its worst trade was the January 2022 month, a loss of 11.57%. In 2022 it won 3 of 12 months. It beat holding in 2024 and 2025 only.
RSI(2) dip snapback had the best risk profile. Its drawdown was 14.27%, its Sharpe was 0.98 and it was invested 36.1% of the time. It lost 5.7% in 2022 while QQQ lost 31.7%, and beat holding that year by 26 points of return. It was the template most hurt by lower returns in the other years: it gained 13.8% in 2023 against 53%. The 164 round trips and the 69% win rate show how often it traded. Average win was 1.53% and the average loss was 1.78%, so the edge came from hit rate and not from size.
Golden cross made two round trips. It bought on 2021-10-19, sold on 2022-03-03 for a loss of 6.27%, then bought on 2023-03-13 and sold on 2025-04-15 for a gain of 61.96%. It re-entered on 2025-06-24 and was still holding at the end of the data with a gain of 40.48%. The 200-day regime filter did something similar with 10 round trips, 2 wins and a 20% win rate. Its 2 winners averaged 42.11% and its losers averaged 2.09%. Both were in cash for much of 2022, which is where they beat holding. Both missed the first leg of the 2023 recovery, since a 200-day average turns late.
SMA 10/50 trend returned 9.03% with 18 round trips and a 39% win rate. EMA 12/26 trend returned 7.85% with 22 round trips and a 41% win rate. The faster the average pair, the more round trips and the lower the CAGR in this window. The 3-month momentum switch returned 8.21% with 12 round trips. RSI(14) mean reversion returned 6.4% with a 73% win rate but was only invested 29% of the time, and the 2022 buys, three of them, all lost.
Trend plus trailing stop returned 11.27%, with a 26.72% drawdown. The 15% trailing stop gave up a lot before it exited. Its worst trade was the entry on 2022-02-02, which exited on 2022-04-27 for a loss of 14.21%.
Momentum breakout with its 10% trailing stop returned 7.84% from 8 round trips. Its 2022 was a loss of 24.5% and 2025 was a gain of 27.2%, so it beat holding in both of those years.
Across the other broad index funds the pattern is similar. SPY held at 14.56% and its best template, weekly 7% target, reached 13.88%. VOO held at 14.42% and its best, RSI(2) snapback, reached 14.08%. QQQM, a second fund on the same index, held at 16.74% and weekly 7% target reached 16.64%. A template beat its fund on QQQE, where weekly 7% target made 11.21% against 9.83%, on IWM, where RSI(2) snapback made 11.38% against 7.5%, and on VOOG, where weekly 7% target made 19.51% against 15.73%.
Months, streaks and open positions
April 2026 was QQQ's best month for holding at 15.44%, and it was the best month for the golden cross at 15.13%, the trailing stop strategy at 15.15%, the monthly cycle at 13.5% and the weekly target at 13.35%. April 2022 was the worst month for holding at negative 13.14% and for the dip buyer at negative 13.06% and the momentum breakout at negative 9.48%. January 2022 was the worst month for the monthly cycle at negative 11.19%, the trailing stop strategy at negative 12.72%, the 200-day filter at negative 9.42%, the golden cross at negative 8.44% and the RSI(2) snapback at negative 6.5%. The RSI(2) snapback's best month was April 2025 at 12.81%, the rebound after the 2025 low, and the dip buyer's was July 2022 at 12.08%.
The streak figures show how the win rates arrive. The weekly target lost 7 round trips in a row at its longest and won at most 3 in a row. The 200-day filter lost 7 in a row and won 1. The monthly cycle won 6 in a row and lost 3. The RSI(2) snapback won 8 in a row and lost 3. The dip buyer won 4 in a row and never lost, each exit at the 8% target. The slower trend rules lost between 2 and 4 trades in a row, which is a short run because they trade so rarely.
The yearly gaps to holding show the same split on every rule. In 2022 the RSI(2) snapback beat holding by 26 points, the golden cross by 19.9, the weekly target by 16.2, the 200-day filter by 15.4 and the EMA 12/26 trend by 14.1. In 2023, when QQQ gained 54.81%, those same rules trailed by 39.2, 11.3, 12.3, 18.5 and 25.5 points. The weekly target is the one that stayed near holding in the years between, with gaps of 4.1 points in 2024 and negative 0.7 in 2025. The RSI(2) snapback trailed in every year except 2022.
Several rules end the window holding a trade. The trailing stop strategy has been in since 2025-05-13 at an adjusted 505.08 and is up 48.4%. The golden cross has been in since 2025-06-24 at 533.57 and is up 40.48%, and the 200-day filter since 2026-04-09 at 604.5, up 24%. The weekly target and the 3-month momentum switch both entered on 2026-09-28 at 739.86 and are up 1.31%. The open trades matter most for the golden cross, whose two closed trades are the only completed results behind its CAGR.
For drawdown recovery, holding took 404 days to recover from the 2021-11-19 peak, on 2023-12-12. The 200-day filter recovered on 2023-06-15 and the golden cross on 2025-10-28 from its 2025 drawdown of 22.23%, which started later than the 2022 one. The momentum breakout needed until 2024-03-01 and the RSI(14) rule until 2024-04-22, both after the holder.
How each strategy traded QQQ
| Strategy | Time in market | Avg hold (days) | Best trade | Worst trade | Profit factor | With 10 bps slippage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| weekly 7% target | 84.1% | 16 | 7.5% | −6.1% | 1.79 | 14.1% |
| monthly cycle | 95.2% | 28 | 14.2% | −11.6% | 1.87 | 12.2% |
| RSI(2) snapback | 36.1% | 5 | 11.4% | −8.3% | 1.95 | 8.0% |
| golden cross | 65.1% | 450 | 62.0% | −6.3% | 9.10 | 13.5% |
| 200-day regime filter | 64.8% | 118 | 67.7% | −4.0% | 4.88 | 12.3% |
| trend + trailing stop | 70.5% | 244 | 46.6% | −14.2% | 2.31 | 11.2% |
| SMA 10/50 trend | 65.0% | 73 | 27.2% | −7.3% | 2.51 | 8.3% |
| 3-month momentum | 60.9% | 106 | 29.4% | −7.9% | 3.46 | 7.6% |
| EMA 12/26 trend | 66.9% | 63 | 24.3% | −8.0% | 1.94 | 7.0% |
| momentum breakout | 63.0% | 165 | 19.7% | −9.8% | 3.64 | 7.6% |
| RSI mean reversion | 29.0% | 41 | 11.0% | −9.4% | 2.63 | 5.9% |
| dip buyer | 30.4% | 160 | 8.0% | 8.0% | – | 5.4% |
How the templates traded QQQ
The time-in-market column separates the templates cleanly. Monthly cycle was in 95.2% of the time, weekly 7% target 84.1%, trend plus trailing stop 70.5%, EMA 12/26 66.9%, golden cross 65.1%, SMA 10/50 65.0%, the 200-day filter 64.8%, momentum breakout 63.0%, 3-month momentum 60.9%, RSI(2) 36.1%, the dip buyer 30.4% and RSI(14) 29.0%. A template with exposure well under 100% needs its cash days to avoid enough of the loss to pay for the missed gains. In QQQ the cash days that mattered were the ones inside the 2022 decline.
Holding periods run from 5 days on average for RSI(2) snapback to 450 days for golden cross. The golden cross average of 450 days is two trades, one of 135 days and one of 764 days. The profit factor of 9.10 comes from the same two trades and describes a sample of two. The trend plus trailing stop figure of 2.31 and the 200-day filter figure of 4.88 are also built on a handful of exits, 4 and 10 round trips. The more trades a template makes, the more its profit factor can be trusted: RSI(2) at 1.95 on 164 round trips and weekly 7% target at 1.79 on 106 are the most reliable figures in the column.
The best single trade belongs to the 200-day filter, a 67.7% gain, and the worst trade belongs to monthly cycle, a loss of 11.6%. The dip buyer shows a best and worst trade of 8.0% because every exit was the resting 8% target.
The cost columns show how much each template depends on execution. At 10 basis points per trade, RSI(2) snapback fell from 14.17% to 7.99%, a drop that moves it from third to seventh, since it trades the most. At 5 basis points it made 11.04%. Weekly 7% target fell from 16.52% to 15.3% at 5 basis points and 14.11% at 10. Monthly cycle fell to 13.39% and then 12.17%. Golden cross barely moved, 13.57% and 13.54%, as did the 200-day filter at 12.8% and 12.27%, and the dip buyer did not move at all at 5.37%. EMA 12/26 fell to 7.55% and 6.97%, and RSI(14) fell to 6.17% and 5.92%. On cost alone, the ranking at 10 basis points puts weekly 7% target first with 14.11%, then golden cross at 13.54%, then the 200-day filter at 12.27%.
The headline run has no costs. QQQ is among the most liquid ETFs in the data, with an average daily dollar volume of $18,772,024,579 and a median minute volume of 77,976 shares. That supports small orders filling at the quoted price, though the 5 and 10 basis point runs are the better guide for a template that trades often. The worst drawdown figures with costs change little: weekly 7% target went from 19.41% to 20.04% and then 21.54%.
How QQQ behaved
| Measure | QQQ |
|---|---|
| Data in this test | 2021-01-04 to 2026-10-02 (1444 sessions) |
| Total return, buy and hold | 151.1% |
| Annualized volatility | 22.4% |
| Deepest drawdown | −35.0% (2021-11-19 to 2022-11-03) |
| Up days | 54.8% |
| Average daily range | 1.58% |
| Average overnight gap | 0.59% |
| Correlation to SPY | 0.94 |
| Correlation to TLT | 0.09 |
| Sessions above the 200-day average | 75.2% |
| Crossings of the 200-day average | 20 |
| Falls of 10% or more from a 20-day high | 21 |
Calendar years
| Year | Return |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 29.2% |
| 2022 | −32.4% |
| 2023 | 54.8% |
| 2024 | 25.6% |
| 2025 | 20.8% |
| 2026 (part) | 22.4% |
Biggest single days
| Best day | Move |
|---|---|
| 2025-04-09 | 11.8% |
| 2022-11-10 | 7.4% |
| 2022-11-30 | 4.6% |
| 2022-07-27 | 4.2% |
| 2025-05-12 | 4.0% |
| Worst day | Move |
|---|---|
| 2025-04-04 | −6.1% |
| 2022-09-13 | −5.5% |
| 2025-04-03 | −5.3% |
| 2022-05-05 | −5.0% |
| 2022-05-18 | −5.0% |
Average return by calendar month
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4% | −0.8% | 0.7% | 0.9% | 5.2% | 2.7% | 2.3% | 0.6% | −1.6% | 2.8% | 4.4% | −0.5% |
Most and least correlated funds
| Most correlated | Least correlated | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| TQQQ | 1.00 | SQQQ | -1.00 |
| QLD | 1.00 | QID | -1.00 |
| QQQM | 1.00 | PSQ | -1.00 |
| VOOG | 0.98 | TECS | -0.97 |
| ROM | 0.97 | REW | -0.96 |
What QQQ's behaviour says about the results
QQQ's annualized volatility was 22.39% and its beta to SPY was 1.29. The correlation to SPY was 0.94 and to TLT only 0.09, so QQQ moves with the broad market at a higher amplitude and has no link to long Treasuries. The 2022 loss of 32.39% in the calendar year shows what the higher beta did in a falling year. The fund had 54.82% up days. The average up day was 1.01% and the average down day was 1.06%, so the up and down days were about the same size. The edge is the count of up days and a long run of rising years, not a difference in size.
The fund spent 75.18% of sessions above its 200-day average and crossed that average 20 times. A 200-day rule holds in the long stretches above and sits out the stretches below. The 20 crossings are why the 200-day filter had 10 round trips and why a 20% win rate was possible: most of those trades were short and lost small amounts. The 5 round trips closed in 2022 and the 2 closed in 2023 produced no wins, and the 2 winners came in 2025 and 2026. Those four figures are in the trade table on the strategy page.
The lag-1 autocorrelation of daily returns was minus 0.04, close to zero. Day-to-day returns carried almost no memory, so yesterday's move said little about today's. The RSI statistics point the same way. RSI(14) fell under 30 on 15 sessions, and the median forward 5-day return after those sessions was 3.69% against 0.56% for the baseline. The forward 20-day return was 1.42% against 1.74% for the baseline. RSI(2) fell under 10 on 144 sessions, with a median forward 5-day return of 0.8% and a 20-day return of 2.18%. A short-horizon oversold reading was followed by a better-than-average week in the RSI(14) case, which matches the high win rates of both RSI templates. The longer 20-day view for RSI(14) was below the baseline.
About 64.64% of QQQ's return came overnight and 35.36% came intraday. The average overnight gap was 0.59% and the average intraday range was 1.58%. Templates that are in cash on a given day miss both parts of that day, and the overnight part is the larger one.
The best day was 2025-04-09 at 11.75%, followed by 2022-11-10 at 7.37%. The worst was 2025-04-04 at minus 6.1%. Both extremes sit in April 2025, and the best days in 2022 fell inside a bear market. A rule that leaves the fund during a decline risks missing those rebound days. The fund also fell 10% or more from a 20-day high on 82 days across 21 separate events.
Seasonality in six years of data is a thin sample, with five or six observations per month. May averaged 5.19% and November 4.42%, while September averaged minus 1.65% and February minus 0.77%. The monthly cycle template is built on the calendar, and its year-by-year record, 3 winning months out of 12 in 2022 and 10 out of 12 in 2024, shows how much the result depended on the year, and not the calendar.
The two other drawdowns in the test are worth setting next to the big one. QQQ fell 22.38% from 2025-02-19 to 2025-04-08 and recovered by 2025-06-24, 77 days later. It fell 13.31% from 2024-07-10 to 2024-08-07 and was back by 2024-11-06. Golden cross had its deepest loss there, 22.23%, since it was still holding in February 2025 and sold on 2025-04-15, a week after the low.
Weekday averages and the Nasdaq peers
The weekday averages are small: Monday 0.19%, Wednesday 0.1%, Tuesday 0.03%, Thursday 0.03% and Friday 0.04%. Monday and Wednesday are the two weekdays with a visible average, and the overnight share of 64.64% is the more useful figure for a rule.
Among the funds that follow the same index or a close cousin, QQQM held for 16.74% and its best template, the weekly target, made 16.64%, against 16.52% for the weekly target on QQQ. QQQE, the equal-weight version, held for 9.83% and its best template made 11.21%, so there a rule did beat holding. VOOG, the S&P 500 growth fund, held for 15.73% and its weekly target made 19.51%. IOO held for 16.72% with the monthly cycle best at 15.8%. On QQQ no template beat holding, and on two of these four peers one did, which describes this window and these funds.
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Frequently asked questions
What was the best strategy for QQQ?
Of the 12 templates tested on QQQ over 2021-01-04 to 2026-10-02, the strongest by CAGR was weekly 7% target at 16.5% (max drawdown 19.4%), versus 16.7% for buy-and-hold. The best result in hindsight is not a forecast. Check drawdowns and trade counts before drawing conclusions.
Did any strategy beat buying and holding QQQ?
0 of 12 templates beat QQQ buy-and-hold (16.7% CAGR) on this window; 11 of 12 had a shallower maximum drawdown than holding (34.2%).
What was the best strategy for QQQ from 2021 to 2026?
Weekly 7% target had the highest CAGR at 16.52% with a 19.41% maximum drawdown. Buy-and-hold made 16.7% with a 34.23% drawdown. The best result in hindsight is a statement about this window and does not forecast the next one.
Did any strategy beat buy-and-hold on QQQ?
None of the 12 templates beat QQQ buy-and-hold on CAGR in this window. Eleven had a shallower maximum drawdown. Weekly 7% target came within 0.18 points, ending at $24,053 against $24,265.
Which strategy had the smallest drawdown on QQQ?
RSI(2) dip snapback, at 14.27%. It was invested 36.1% of the time, made 164 round trips and had the highest Sharpe ratio among the templates at 0.98. It paid for that with a lower CAGR of 14.17%, and a 10 basis point cost run cut that to 7.99%.
How did the trend strategies do on QQQ?
Golden cross returned 13.6% with 2 round trips, the 200-day regime filter 12.9% with 10, SMA 10/50 9.03% with 18 and EMA 12/26 7.85% with 22. Slower rules did better in this window and all of them beat holding only in 2022.
How much did QQQ fall in 2022?
The calendar year 2022 was a loss of 32.39%. The deepest drawdown ran 35% from 2021-11-19 to 2022-11-03, and the fund did not regain its old high until 2023-12-12.
Does trading cost change the QQQ ranking?
It changes it for the busy templates. RSI(2) snapback fell from 14.17% to 7.99% with 10 basis points per trade. Golden cross, the 200-day filter and the dip buyer barely moved because they trade rarely.
Other broad index etfs
Backtests are hypothetical, computed by DeployQuant's engine on minute-resolution consolidated US market data (2021-01-04 to 2026-10-02, $10,000 starting capital, no margin, no fees or slippage in the headline run; buy-and-hold puts 98% of the account in at the first open, as the templates do) and do not guarantee future results. Nothing on this page is investment advice. Live trading involves risk of loss.