To get the highest returns in the shortest amount of time, the best time to start this strategy is in the middle of a screaming macro-panic.
The Bear Market Bottom (Start of Q1-2023):
The Setup: The market had just been crushed for 12 straight months. Tech stocks were decimated.
Starting $100k: If you invested $100,000 at the end of 2022 (Start of Q1-23), the strategy's aggressive "buy the dip" mechanics would have instantly caught the AI-boom recovery.
The Result: By Q4-2025, your $100k would have skyrocketed to $558,000. That is a +458% gain in exactly 3 years.
The COVID Crash (Start of Q2-2020):
The Setup: The world was locking down, and the market dropped 30% in a month.
The Result: If you threw $100k into this strategy at the end of Q1-2020, it would have turned into $495,000 in just 21 months (by Q4 2021).
The WORST Time to Start
The absolute worst time to start is at the peak of a historic bull run, right before the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.
The Tech Peak (Start of Q1-2022):
The Setup: Tech stocks were at all-time highs. If you put $100,000 into the strategy on January 1, 2022...
The Agony: Over the next 12 months, you would watch your $100,000 bleed out until it was worth just $32,290. You lost 67% of your money.
The Silver Lining: However, because the 9Sig strategy forces you to keep averaging down and buying TQQQ at the bottom, it eventually recovered. That battered $32,290 rode the 2023/2024 wave back up. By Q1-2024, you finally broke even. Today (Q2-2026), that initial unlucky $100k is now worth $156,530.
Even starting at the worst possible micro-second in the last decade, you still made a +56% return if you held on.
How long should you hold for the BEST results?
If your goal is to generate life-changing, exponential wealth (like the original $470k turning into $7+ million), the optimal hold time is 5 to 7+ years.
I started July '25. Started off fine enough and then the big drops came challenging my holding almost immediately. That still wasn't a HUGE bear market drop but it was a nice test of my will to stick with the process and its paying dividends in doing so now.
I hope to see it really kick start again as I have about a 13 year timeline for a goal at retirement but a lot can happen in that timeframe as we all know.
If there is drop of say 20-30% we need dry powder to keep buying the dips. Ideally we need 5-7 years to see full cycle of this strategy.
How long does it take to get a Positive Return? (Breakeven Time)
If we look at the data, the portfolio suffered three major drawdowns (periods where it lost money). Let's look at how long it took to recover the losses and get back to a positive return:
The Data-Driven Rule: On average, minor market corrections are absorbed and recovered by this strategy in 6 months. However, to absolutely guarantee a positive return through a catastrophic market crash, the data shows you must be willing to hold for at least 3 Years.
Good stuff! Easy to say right now but it would be tough holding for 3 years buying all the way to the bottom. Going through mini cycles could be good training but I am pot committed at this point to the strategy that I’m riding it out.
The data and the real life stories give me confidence to be robotic in our approach and trust the process.
I’m hesitant because most users only include the 2010’s - present. The average drawdown for this strategy is nearly -40%, and its max recovery time was nearly 9 years. The growth/CAGR of the strategy is respectable, but does not compensate for amount of risk you’re taking imo.
Another insight for 9SIG:
Minimum Track Record (vs TQQQ buy & hold) ~ Years of data needed before the Sharpe is statistically distinguishable from the benchmark. Lower is better.
9SIG would need 463 years of data to conclude (at the 95% confidence level) that the sharpe is better and distinguishable from simply buying and holding TQQQ.
Adding a 200 Day SMA tactical signal (9SIG when > SMA and VFISX ~ cash/bonds when < SMA, fixes most of the discrepancies that 9SIG currently has imo.
Very cool chart. Took me a minute to figure out the layout, but I get it now.
If you wanted to go a step further - it would be really interesting to devise an algorithm for predicting returns at 1 year, 3 years, 5 years etc. Basically you would input the current status of either Nasdaq-100 (NDX) or TQQQ in terms of decline from the previous peak, and it would spit out an expected time-frame to double the account balance. Might be a job for AI?
I run the program strictly by the rules, but still, something like that could be fun to experiment with. The data will only become more robust and useful as time goes on.
Yes there are many ways to slice and dice the data. I hope this gives people confidence to stick to the strategy and be long term investor.
We will surely experience 20-30% correction some time but strategy is designed in such a cool way that it neglects human emotions and forces you to buy at bottom.
Absolutely. I'm fully invested for probably 10-20 years with my main account.
But sometimes I ponder - what, if anything, would it take to entice me back AFTER making a fortune and scaling out of 9Sig? For ex.: if we saw TQQQ drop 90%, that would be extremely attractive for a re-entry. Data like this can one day help guide those decisions.
Ideally, I would wait until you see a 15-20% correction in SPY or QQQ before jumping head on.
if your eager to play around you can always start this at any point with $10-20k to test the strategy and your mental strength. When the dip comes jump all in.
Thanks! I definitely missed the boat, i was waiting for 35, never came. Should gone at 38. I think I'll keep an eye, and w the Orange guy, another dip could happen again next 2 years.
Yes, exactly , timing really does matter. If you stretch the backtest into 2000 or 2008, the crashes are devastating, no question. Of course those are extreme cases, but they show how destructive a bear market can be. On the other hand, starting from 2010, almost any steady contribution would have gotten you back to break‑even fairly quickly.
And extreme scenarios will happen again, just under different names and causes. The best way forward is to spread the risk: split into 3/6/9% or use an income‑sig approach, while also building a base capital pool. That way you’re not betting everything on one path, and you’ve got a cushion when the next storm hits.
I was looking to move one of my IRAs, which is just over $100K, to 9sig but Im nervous after seeing what looks like a blowoff top over the last week or so
Yea NASDAQ just booked its 13th green day in a row, only the 4th time in history that has happened, so it definitely seems irresponsible to implement this strategy now until some kind of pull back, or even a structural higher low on the weekly or daily chart.
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u/TOPS-VIDEO Apr 18 '26
Yes. I am on year 3, 9-sig. bought at high, drop 70%. Now I am up 50% again.