Methodology
How every number is made
All results are computed on the server from one fixed, versioned data snapshot. The engine is checked against the research pipeline's independent Python engine to within one part in a billion.
Data sources and checks
Every fund price is Bloomberg's total-return index with gross dividends reinvested (TOT_RETURN_INDEX_GROSS_DVDS): daily from 2007 for the funds and their stand-ins, month-end from 1999 for the monthly history. A session without a Bloomberg price stays empty, so nothing is filled or interpolated; the move is counted when the next price arrives. New trading days are added the same way, and a stored day is never rewritten. Daily history starts on 31 May 2007, the first day of the cash series. Rates, oil, credit spreads and inflation come from FRED; models before funds existed also use IMF and Ken French data.
Before a fund existed
Before each fund launched, a similar real fund stands in: DVY for SCHD, VIG for DGRW, IGF for IFRA, HYG for SHYG and BIL for SGOV. DBMF uses Guggenheim (2007–09) and AQR (2010 to May 2019) managed-futures funds. HGER uses DBC, then PDBC, then the Quantix commodity index from Aug 2018 to Feb 2022. That index went live in January 2022, so this stretch is its provider's back-calculation, not a fund or a live index. BTAL is treated as T-bills before Sep 2011, so no crash protection is assumed in 2008. No data is invented: nothing is interpolated, and a day with no price carries no return.
The 1999–2026 monthly history
A separate monthly series runs from 1999 to 2026 and includes the dot-com bust. It uses real fund data where it exists. Where no fund existed, a labeled model stands in: trend before Mar 2007 (a momentum model calibrated to DBMF, correlation 0.65), commodities before Jul 2002 (38% Brent, 31% gold, 31% IMF non-fuel index, spot prices with no roll), Treasuries before Aug 2002 (a bond with 7.5-year duration built from the 10-year yield) and anti-beta as T-bills before Sep 2011. Gold before Dec 2004 uses Bloomberg spot gold at month-ends. Monthly drawdowns are shallower than daily ones.
Rebalancing
At the first trading session of each quarter every holding is traded back to its exact target weight, at that session's close, whatever the drift. If a fund being traded has no price that day, the whole trade waits for the next session with prices. Targets stay fixed throughout the history.
Trading costs and leverage
Every trade costs 0.20% (20 bp) on every dollar bought and sold. The portfolios use no leverage and no short positions: weights are long-only and add up to 100%.
Chart windows
Every chart window is a slice of one continuous portfolio. A window counts every trading day from its first date to its last, so its return runs from the close before the first date: 1 to 30 September is September's return, 1 January to today is the year to date. A window never starts a fresh portfolio, so it shows what an investor already holding the portfolio experienced over those dates, including drift and the rebalancing calendar. Returns are not annualised for windows shorter than a year.
Contribution and monthly returns
For any window, a fund's contribution is the profit it made, day by day, on what the portfolio held in it, divided by the portfolio's value at the window's start close. The contributions, minus trading costs, add up exactly to the window's return. Monthly returns run from one month-end close to the next; months and years cut by the window's edges are marked.
Sell-offs
The sell-off list holds every fall of 10% or more in the S&P 500 index since the daily history begins in 2007, plus three smaller scares of 2024–26. Each is measured from the S&P 500's closing high to its closing low, dividends included, on the same continuous portfolios as everything else. The 2026 momentum and AI-chip crash is measured between the semiconductor index's high and low, because the S&P 500 itself barely fell.
Limitations
The commodity history before February 2022 is not HGER's own: it uses other commodity funds and, for 2018–22, the back-calculated history of HGER's index. BTAL's behavior in 2008 is unknown, because it launched in 2011. Twenty-seven years still cover only two large tech cycles. This is research, not investment advice.
Data lineage
Which price series stands for each fund over time. Before a fund existed, a named real fund (or, in one case, the index it tracks) stands in. Nothing is interpolated.
| Fund | Series used, oldest first |
|---|---|
| XLK | XLK (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| SCHD | DVY (Bloomberg, from the start) → SCHD (Bloomberg, from Oct 2011) |
| DGRW | VIG (Bloomberg, from the start) → DGRW (Bloomberg, from May 2013) |
| XLV | XLV (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| XLU | XLU (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| RSP | RSP (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| IFRA | IGF (Bloomberg, from the start) → IFRA (Bloomberg, from Apr 2018) |
| SHYG | HYG (Bloomberg, from the start) → SHYG (Bloomberg, from Oct 2013) |
| IEF | IEF (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| SGOV | BIL (Bloomberg, from the start) → SGOV (Bloomberg, from Jun 2020) |
| HGER | DBC (Bloomberg, from the start) → PDBC (Bloomberg, from Nov 2014) → QCITR Index (Bloomberg, from Aug 2018) → HGER (Bloomberg, from Feb 2022) |
| GLDM · GLD | GLD (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| DBMF | RYMFX (Bloomberg, from the start) → AQMIX (Bloomberg, from Jan 2010) → DBMF (Bloomberg, from May 2019) |
| BTAL | BIL (Bloomberg, from the start) → BTAL (Bloomberg, from Sep 2011) |
| SPY | SPY (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| QQQ | QQQ (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| VTI | VTI (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| SMH | SMH (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| XLE | XLE (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| TLT | TLT (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| USMV | USMV (Bloomberg, from the start) |
| JEPI | PBP (Bloomberg, from the start) → PBP+USMV (50/50, from Oct 2011) → JEPI (Bloomberg, from May 2020) |
| DIVO | PBP (Bloomberg, from the start) → DIVO (Bloomberg, from Dec 2016) |
| INFL | IGE (Bloomberg, from the start) → GNR (Bloomberg, from Sep 2010) → INFL (Bloomberg, from Jan 2021) |
| KMLM | RYMFX (Bloomberg, from the start) → KMLM (Bloomberg, from Dec 2020) |
| BCI | DJP (Bloomberg, from the start) → BCI (Bloomberg, from Apr 2017) |
Snapshot 48500f6420f34800
Daily data: Mar 1, 2007 — Oct 15, 2026
Monthly data: Jan 1999 — Sep 2026
Sources
- Bloomberg TOT_RETURN_INDEX_GROSS_DVDS (total return, gross dividends reinvested) for every fund and stand-in: daily from 2007, month-end from 1999; a session or month without a Bloomberg value stays empty
- Bloomberg TOT_RETURN_INDEX_GROSS_DVDS (total return, gross dividends) for every session from 2026-10-05, appended to the history above; 7 uploads, latest 2026-10-16
- Bloomberg indices: Quantix commodity index (QCITR) Aug-2018 to Feb-2022 for the HGER role; spot gold (XAU) before Dec-2004 in the monthly history
- FRED, IMF and Ken French series for labelled monthly models before funds existed
Files and checksums
daily.json · 8590f797882a9080d1c810fe219401057086e8910452a8226eb90bfc3379c678
monthly.json · 6e4a0c6f34dc2e40eeaba53b818d072c62475a99b505719e89f10b01aa459241
research.json · 7b3ce4d0dfd2e1bd460911b9fdfee3776ef927b545b31cafbd766ab2d297b226