Guide · Trend following
Does Seykota 15/150 work?
Across 371 stocks, Seykota 15/150 cut the worst fall on 78%, beat buying and holding on risk-adjusted return on 24% and on raw return on 19%. Mainly a seatbelt: it softened the big falls on most stocks, but usually gave up return to do it.
What it predicts
The teaching system on Seykota's own site: long while a fast exponential average sits above a slow one, out otherwise. Never short.
- In when the 15-day exponential average is above the 150-day.
- Out when it is below.
Trend following plays bet that prices that have been rising tend to keep rising for a while, and falls tend to keep falling. The family guide
How to use it
- It trades rarely (about 1.4 switches a year), so it suits someone who checks in occasionally, and a single bad call can last months.
- Expect to be wrong more often than right: only 25% of its calls worked. Its results come from the size of the winners, so following it means sitting through strings of small losses.
- It worked best on Media & telecom (40% beat holding on risk-adjusted return) and worst on Industrials & rentals (0%).
- Use it as one input. Your signal combines the plays you count with the other factors you weight into one call.
When it worked
Seykota 15/150 did best against holding in the 2008 crash (+27% median gap) and worst in the 2020–21 rally (−17%). Median gap in return against holding the same stock (per year over stretches longer than 18 months; crypto excluded).
| 2008 crash | Recovery 2009–19 | COVID drop | 2020–21 rally | 2022 bear | Since Oct 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seykota 15/150 | +27% | −6% | +0% | −17% | +1% | −8% |
Where it worked
By kind of stock: how often it beat holding on risk-adjusted return, and the median Sharpe ratio gap.
| Group | Beat holding, risk-adjusted | Sharpe gap |
|---|---|---|
| Media & telecom | 40% | -0.05 |
| Software & devices | 36% | -0.03 |
| Financials | 35% | -0.05 |
| Healthcare | 28% | -0.11 |
| Energy & power | 27% | -0.07 |
| Consumer & retail | 26% | -0.11 |
| Real estate | 26% | -0.05 |
| Industrials & materials | 24% | -0.07 |
| Semiconductors | 19% | -0.13 |
| Sectors | 17% | -0.08 |
| Metals & mining | 16% | -0.13 |
| Indexes & ETFs | 14% | -0.03 |
| Big tech | 0% | -0.08 |
| Industrials & rentals | 0% | -0.19 |
Where it helped most
Sharpe ratio gap against holding, stocks with 3+ years of history
Right now
Seykota 15/150 holds 254 of 377 names as of the Oct 13, 2026 close.
Changed its call in the last two weeks:
Backtest results since 2005 (or as long as each stock has traded), against holding the same stock over the same dates, after 0.05% per switch. Past results don't promise future ones. This analysis does not constitute trading advice. Please meet with an advisor or independently review sources before making any decision.