The oldest timing trick in the book: own QQQ when it's above its 200-day average, sit in cash when it isn't. We ran it on 20 years of real data — through 2008, 2020, and 2022.
Buy-and-hold turned $10,000 into $150,937. The 200-day timing rule turned it into $86,555 — a $64,382 gap. The timing rule was invested only 81% of the days, and that missing 19% contained some of the market's most explosive rebounds.
But the story isn't one-sided. The timing rule cut the worst drawdown in half: −26.4% vs −53.4% for buy-and-hold. In 2008, buy-and-hold lost 40.8% in a single year; the timing rule lost only 15.0%. In 2022: −33.2% vs −17.7%. If your goal was sleeping well, the rule did its job — it just charged you about 3% a year for the peace of mind.
Buy-and-hold beat the timing rule in 11 of 20 years. The timing rule won outright in only 2 years — 2008 and 2022, the two crash years. The other 7 years both strategies were fully invested (tie).
| Year | QQQ buy & hold | 200-day timing | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | +2.6% | +2.6% | Tie |
| 2006 | +4.8% | +1.6% | Buy & hold |
| 2007 | +18.8% | +18.8% | Tie |
| 2008 | -40.8% | -15.0% | Timing |
| 2009 | +48.2% | +29.2% | Buy & hold |
| 2010 | +18.4% | +-0.0% | Buy & hold |
| 2011 | +1.9% | -11.9% | Buy & hold |
| 2012 | +15.9% | +11.2% | Buy & hold |
| 2013 | +32.4% | +32.4% | Tie |
| 2014 | +20.1% | +20.1% | Tie |
| 2015 | +9.8% | +2.3% | Buy & hold |
| 2016 | +9.4% | +1.4% | Buy & hold |
| 2017 | +31.5% | +31.5% | Tie |
| 2018 | -1.8% | -5.6% | Buy & hold |
| 2019 | +38.4% | +19.1% | Buy & hold |
| 2020 | +46.0% | +34.4% | Buy & hold |
| 2021 | +29.2% | +29.2% | Tie |
| 2022 | -33.2% | -17.7% | Timing |
| 2023 | +55.9% | +37.5% | Buy & hold |
| 2024 | +27.7% | +27.7% | Tie |
The pattern: moving-average rules are slow by design. They exit late, and — more costly — they re-enter late, missing the sharp V-shaped recoveries that define modern markets.
The 200-day rule is excellent emotional insurance — it halved the worst drawdown and dodged the two ugliest years. But as a wealth-building strategy over 20 years, it cost $64,382 on a $10,000 start. If you can stomach the drops, doing nothing beat doing something clever.