First of all, a warm welcome to all the new subscribers who joined since last time!

The positive comments and feedback I have received since I started publishing my strategy have been overwhelming. Thank you all for that!

A lot of you have requested lists of specific ETF tickers needed to follow the strategy. My intention with today’s post is to provide everything you need regarding that.

If you’re only here for the ticker lists, feel free to scroll down. 👇

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What’s the best way to invest in ETFs?

ETF is short for Exchange-Traded Fund and represents an easy way for investors to diversify across a large number of stocks through the purchase of a single ticker on a stock exchange.

They are similar to regular funds, except most of them are passive, which means they automatically follow an index as opposed to having a fund manager actively pick each individual stock.

The most common usage of ETFs is for passive index investing. With this strategy you simply buy and hold an ETF that tracks a broad market index like the MSCI World or the S&P 500.

This simple approach is reported to beat 95% of professional fund managers over time because it automatically avoids any form of bias or emotion in decision-making.

How to optimize index investing

Not many years ago I was doing passive index investing myself — convinced by the books and the research telling me it was next to impossible to beat this simple approach in the long run anyway.

But my analytical mindset and curiosity couldn’t stop thinking about ways to optimize or improve this. I have described my journey and the strategy it led to here:

➡️ My Investment Approach that Outperformed the Stock Market in 25 of 26 years

Basically, I realized I could improve ETF returns significantly and consistently by systematically rotating between sector-focused ETFs and factor-focused ETFs, resulting in +20% annual returns over the past 10 years.

I created a simple algorithm that picks the strongest sector and the strongest factor based on relative price momentum. This results in a maximum of two trades to be executed on the first trading day of each month.

Sounds complicated? It’s not. Here’s the best part: It’s super easy to copy my approach, as I calculate exactly which trades should be executed (the signals) each month and send it to all subscribers before the market opens.

What you need to know about the ETF market

The global market for ETFs can be confusing and overwhelming. Different rules apply in different regions. The same ETFs can have different tickers on different exchanges. And the availability of specific tickers can differ from broker to broker, from country to country.

For these reasons (and because I’m writing for a global audience), I didn’t originally include a list of specific ETF tickers when I described the investment universe and the indices needed to trade the MarketFighter Strategy in this post:

➡️ Revealing the Exact Universe Behind the MarketFighter Strategy

What I did in that post was to give you the overview of the 15 indices the strategy tracks and compares. Give it a read if you want to learn more about why the strategy works with the specific ETFs and corresponding indices. For now, I will just share this quick illustration from the article:

It became obvious to me from all the requests, that it was not enough to simply list the indices. So I decided to assemble two detailed lists:

• One with specific ETFs available to the European market

• One with specific ETFs available on US exchanges

People living in the European Union have limited access to US-listed ETFs because of regulatory compliance rules. From most other regions of the world, you will have access to the ETF tickers on the US market.

List of ETFs for the European market

The list below contains my suggestions for ETFs listed on the European market. These are the ones I’m trading myself, as I live in Denmark. They are all UCITS-compliant which means they fulfill the regulatory requirements for selling to retail investors living in the European Union.

Each element in the list is headlined by the index it tracks (the factor or sector to invest in). It includes the full name of the ETF, a ticker name and the unique ISIN code.

On the European market the ISIN code is the safest way to identify an ETF, as the ticker codes differ from one exchange to another. It’s important to note that the ticker names I have listed below are the Xetra Exchange tickers (listed in Germany):

USA MOMENTUM

iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor UCITS ETF
QDVA 🔸 IE00BD1F4N50

USA QUALITY

iShares Edge MSCI USA Quality Factor UCITS ETF
QDVB 🔸 IE00BD1F4L37

USA VALUE

iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor UCITS ETF
QDVI 🔸 IE00BD1F4M44

USA SMALL CAP

iShares MSCI USA Small Cap ESG Enhanced CTB UCITS ETF
SXRG 🔸 IE00B3VWM098

EUROPE MOMENTUM

iShares Edge MSCI Europe Momentum Factor UCITS ETF
CEMR 🔸 IE00BQN1K786

EUROPE QUALITY

iShares Edge MSCI Europe Quality Factor UCITS ETF
CEMQ 🔸 IE00BQN1K562

EUROPE VALUE

iShares Edge MSCI Europe Value Factor UCITS ETF
CEMS 🔸 IE00BQN1K901

EUROPE SMALL CAP

Xtrackers MSCI Europe Small Cap UCITS ETF
XXSC 🔸 LU0322253906

CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY

iShares S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector UCITS ETF
QDVK 🔸 IE00B4MCHD36

CONSUMER STAPLES

iShares S&P 500 Consumer Staples Sector UCITS ETF
2B7D 🔸 IE00B40B8R38

ENERGY

iShares S&P 500 Energy Sector UCITS ETF
QDVF 🔸 IE00B42NKQ00

HEALTH CARE

iShares S&P 500 Health Care Sector UCITS ETF
QDVG 🔸 IE00B43HR379

INDUSTRIALS

iShares S&P 500 Industrials Sector UCITS ETF
2B7C 🔸 IE00B4LN9N13

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

iShares S&P 500 Information Technology Sector UCITS ETF
QDVE 🔸 IE00B3WJKG14

MATERIALS

iShares S&P 500 Materials Sector UCITS ETF
2B7B 🔸 IE00B4MKCJ84

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List of ETFs for the US market

The American market for ETFs is in many ways less complicated than the European one. You can count on the ticker name, and there are less regulatory restrictions. This also means most other retail investors in other parts of the world will have access to trade these ETFs.

One thing to be aware of though, is that some of the indices I use in the system are not tracked in exactly the same way by any US-listed ETF. This is the case for the following:

• Europe Momentum

• Europe Quality

• Europe Value

In these cases I suggest the “International” (Ex-US) versions that include the full developed market outside of United States. Europe typically constitutes 60-70% of this. These alternatives are the closest matches on the US market, and I don’t believe their returns will be dramatically different, as they track the same risk premia.

Below is my list of suggestions for US-listed ETFs, headlined by the index they track, followed by the full ETF name, the ticker code and the ISIN code for unique identification:

USA MOMENTUM

iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF
MTUM 🔹 US46432F3964

USA QUALITY

iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF
QUAL 🔹 US46432F3394

USA VALUE

iShares MSCI USA Value Factor ETF
VLUE 🔹 US46432F3881

USA SMALL CAP

iShares U.S. Small-Cap Equity Factor ETF
SMLF 🔹 US46434V2907

EUROPE MOMENTUM

iShares MSCI Intl Momentum Factor ETF
IMTM 🔹 US46434V4499

EUROPE QUALITY

iShares MSCI Intl Quality Factor ETF
IQLT 🔹 US46434V4564

EUROPE VALUE

iShares MSCI Intl Value Factor ETF
IVLU 🔹 US46435G4091

EUROPE SMALL CAP

iShares MSCI Europe Small-Cap ETF
IEUS 🔹 US4642884971

CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY

State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLY 🔹 US81369Y4070

CONSUMER STAPLES

State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLP 🔹 US81369Y3080

ENERGY

State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLE 🔹 US81369Y5069

HEALTH CARE

State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLV 🔹 US81369Y2090

INDUSTRIALS

State Street Industrial Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLI 🔹 US81369Y7040

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLK 🔹 US81369Y8030

MATERIALS

State Street Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLB 🔹 US81369Y1001

Leveraged ETFs for the fearless

One subscriber requested a list of leveraged ETFs to follow the strategy with higher impact. First of all, I want to make it clear that I’m not recommending the use of leveraged ETFs, as I haven’t tested the strategy with these!

But for traders with a high risk appetite, there are actually 2x-leveraged sector ETFs available in the US. These track the daily changes with 200% exposure to the tracked sector index. They are listed with the following tickers:

• ROM | Ultra Technology

• DIG | Ultra Energy

• RXL | Ultra Health Care

• UYM | Ultra Materials

• UGE | Ultra Consumer Staples

• UCC | Ultra Consumer Discretionary

• UXI | Ultra Industrials

I have not managed to find any leveraged factor ETFs listed in the US. On the European market the use of leverage in ETFs is much less widespread, and I didn’t find any suitable solutions.

How to use the lists

Save these lists somewhere if you want to have an overview of the ETFs needed to follow the MarketFighter Strategy. If you are a subscriber, you will receive the monthly trading signals, which always include the two exact ETFs needed for the coming month, regardless if you trade on the US or the European market.

Thanks for reading!

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

Welcome to the monthly performance update for anyone following the MarketFighter Strategy — a simple systematic investment approach with a high probability of outperforming the market (doing so in 25 of the past 26 years).

I’m writing this to give you a transparent look into the recent performance. If you traded the strategy in March like I did, I’m sure you will enjoy reading this update 👇

New to the strategy? Check out these links:
➡️ The quick introduction
➡️ The detailed breakdown of the strategy

What a month we had in March!

While global stock markets tumbled due to the war in Iran and the staggering oil price, followers of the MarketFighter Strategy experienced another month in green territory. Here is our monthly performance so far in 2026 compared to our market benchmark, the MSCI World Index:

Three consecutive months of solid outperformance is not something you can expect to see often. Trading and investment strategies should be measured in years and decades, not in months or days. Still, it’s hard not to be very satisfied with the results so far in 2026.

Detailed monthly breakdown

In the table below I have provided the exact performance of our strategy compared to the World Index, as well as the alpha (the excess return, or the difference between our return and the market return):

The table also lists the allocation in each month. These are the two ETFs the system decided to allocate money into based on the relative price momentum rules that are the foundation behind the strategy.

You can read more about the investment universe and the 15 indices and corresponding ETFs the strategy uses here:

➡️ Indices and ETFs in our investment universe

If you’re looking for the April trading signal and curious about which ETFs the system is currently allocated to, I wrote a separate article here:

➡️ The April 2026 Trading Signal

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The main driver of returns

The strategy stands on two legs: factor momentum and sector momentum. The two tend to outperform at different times. This means by combining them, we get a smoother return profile. In some months the sector allocation will be great, while the factor allocation is mediocre and vice versa.

Since the strategy moved out of Technology and into the Energy sector on February 1st, it has delivered staggering returns. No one could predict the war or the recent development in the oil price, but the system detected a high relative momentum in the Energy sector at the end of January — long before the headlines caught up.

This purely data-driven decision was the primary cause of the returns we have achieved in the past two months.

It’s pure math. The system doesn’t care why the market moves. It only recognizes the move, compares it to alternatives and suggests an allocation to the asset with the highest probability of near-term outperformance.

The chart below (provided by YCharts) illustrates how much of a game-changer it has been to be allocated in Energy compared to all other sectors in March:

A note on the macro situation

There are thousands of active macro analysts with strong opinions on what’s happening in the world at the moment. I’m not one of them.

My edge is my systematic approach. I will not try to predict anything, and I will not follow the same approach that leads most investors to mediocre returns, attempting to benefit from the same information that is available to everyone.

For my strategy to work well, I need to ignore the media narrative and all the analysis and opinions I see everywhere. Simply trusting my system has provided far better returns for me.

Sometimes that means executing a trade that feels wrong in the moment. Sometimes it means going against your own opinion — whether it came from the media, from your own analysis, or from someone else.

If you consider following this strategy, you need to decide if you still want to study macro analysis, fundamentals and opinions, or if you are ready to pursue an entirely systematic approach to optimizing returns.

I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for reading!

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

It’s time for the monthly allocation change. As March came to a close, the system has now calculated the momentum data, and the selection for April is ready.

Before the first market opening of each month I send out the trading signal provided by the systematic monthly rotation strategy. The signal tells us which two ETFs the system will move into for the coming month.

If you’re just here for the signal, feel free to scroll down to find it! 👇

First time here? Check out these links:
➡️ The quick introduction
➡️ The detailed breakdown of the strategy

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March was incredible for the strategy

For subscribers who followed along and traded the March signal, this month was a joy. I will put up a full performance report for March during the coming week, but I can already say it has been a pleasure to watch our strategy stay in green while the rest of the market has been in turmoil. I posted this little chart a few days ago:

This kind of outperformance is of course not to be expected every month. Such a large alpha achieved in only one month is out of the ordinary, even for this strategy.

As you might have noticed, it was entirely driven by the US Energy Sector ETF which benefited from the staggering oil prices.

I’m not here to be a macro analyst and I will never attempt to predict anything. If you ask me if this performance in the energy sector will continue, my answer is:

I have absolutely no idea.

My take on the market is entirely data-driven, and I move my money to the areas of the market where the historical probability of outperformance is the highest. This has worked well for more than 25 years, but there have been ups and downs along the way. March was without a doubt in the former category!

Now for the trading signal you have been waiting for…

The April 2026 Signal

For the coming month of April 2026, the MarketFighter strategy will be holding these two positions, equally weighted:

THE FACTOR ALLOCATION (50%):
▶️ MSCI USA Enhanced Value

THE SECTOR ALLOCATION (50%):
▶️ S&P 500 Energy Sector

US investors can implement the signal by holding these ETFs:

✅ VLUE ticker (ISIN: US46432F3881)

✅ XLE ticker (ISIN: US81369Y5069)

European investors can implement the signal by holding these ETFs:

✅ IUVD ticker (ISIN: IE00BFF5RX68)

✅ QDVF ticker (ISIN: IE00B42NKQ00)

Moving from European Value to US Value

While the sector allocation remains unchanged in Energy, the factor allocation moves from European value stocks and into their American counterpart.

This is the result of a significant performance in the MSCI USA Enhanced Value Index relative to the European index in recent months.

As systematic observers we simply rely on the momentum-based rules to identify the asset with the highest probability of outperformance in the coming month.

Actions and rebalancing

If you are new to the strategy and want to follow along, simply buy and hold the two positions until you receive the next trading signal in your inbox, when we reach May.

If you traded the March signal and want to follow along, it means you will already own an ETF tracking the S&P 500 Energy Sector, which will continue in April. You will also own an ETF tracking the MSCI Europe Enhanced Value Index, which you need to sell, and use the money to buy an ETF tracking the MSCI USA Enhanced Value Index instead, as mentioned above.

The strategy is designed to have an equal 50/50 balance between the two ETFs at the beginning of each month. However, drifting a bit from the 50/50 does not mean the system will break. If your trading fees are low, feel free to rebalance as much as you want, but don’t worry if your positioning moves closer to 60/40 or 40/60.

Don’t forget to subscribe for more information on the MarketFighter strategy and for future trading signals!

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

Most investors fail before they even place their first trade. Not because they lack intelligence or capital, but because they pick a fight they don't have the time or resources to win.

They try to out-research Wall Street next to a full-time day job. They try to time the market with a gut feeling that changes with the news cycle. They’re playing a professional's game with a hobbyist's schedule.

It’s time to take off the blindfold and find an approach that actually fits your life. Today, I’m putting the world’s most popular investing styles under the microscope to find a strategy that matches your personality and your return expectations.

Let’s get to work.

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The truth about strategies

Success in the markets is not just a matter of high intellect, but also about playing the right game. Most retail investors are playing a game where the odds are stacked heavily against them. Here’s the truth that Wall Street doesn’t tell you:

Every investment strategy comes at a price — a burden you have to take, which is measured in your hours, your stress levels, and your mental bandwidth. What you need is a strategy that works specifically for you.

To find this, you have to be humble and honest about your own weaknesses. If you keep grinding, but feel you’re getting nowhere, it’s probably because you’re paying a price you can't afford for a game you weren't built to play.

Now, let’s walk through the most common strategies and their hidden prices.

#1: Passive Index Investing

Buying a simple index fund or ETF that simply tracks the S&P 500 or the MSCI World Index has become increasingly popular in recent years. It removes the entire workload from the buyer, and it doesn’t require any specific knowledge. Anyone can play this game.

Research even shows index investing outperforms most professionals and fund managers. But where many people fail is during the occasional deep market declines where it can be tempting to sell out — only to wait too long before entering the market again when the train has already passed.

At the same time, the index investor has to accept they will never beat the market, and that there’s a natural ceiling to their returns. The urge to sell out during declines or to move into higher performing stocks has to be controlled.

✅ Pros: Easy, low effort, no skills required. Performs better than most professionals.

❌ Cons: It’s boring and you have to accept you’ll never beat the market.

⚠️ The hidden price: Lack of control, opportunity cost and FOMO from high performing stocks. Requires patience and discipline not to sell out.

➡️ Conclusion: A rock-solid choice for those who are truly content with market averages and have the iron stomach to do nothing when the world feels like it’s ending. But if you’re looking for outperformance, this strategy won’t cut it.

#2: Active Stock Picking

The standard for stock market investing. Active stock picking is a very broad term that actually covers many focused sub-strategies such as value, quality, growth, momentum, or contrarian investing, along with various forms of technical analysis.

For the select few Warren Buffetts out there, stock picking can lead to outsized returns and remarkable performance. This is what we all dream about. The enemy is often our ego and our perception of our own intelligence.

In psychology, this is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect: The cognitive bias where individuals with limited knowledge or competence in a domain greatly overestimate their own expertise.

As a retail investor you are up against supercomputers, AI, PhD researchers and professional 90-hour-workweek analysts. Our odds of winning at this game are very low. On the positive side, the fun and entertainment of this style is much higher than for index investing.

Succeeding is not impossible, but you need to have a very strong edge — some knowledge or ability that clearly brings you ahead of the crowd. If you don’t know what your edge is, chances are you will eventually lose your money to the bigger fish that actually have an edge.

✅ Pros: Fun and entertaining. Theoretical possibility of getting rich quick.

❌ Cons: Your competition in this field is huge. You are David vs. Goliath.

⚠️ The hidden price: You pay in hours and ego. The workload needed to stand a chance in this game is beyond a full-time job.

➡️ Conclusion: Do this for fun, education and entertainment and for the intellectual rush. But I don’t recommend investing your entire portfolio like this, unless you are one of the select few.

#3: Day-Trading

Speaking of games, day-trading is a completely different beast. It’s not about investing in the market or in companies for business reasons. It’s much more speculative and the mental barriers to succeeding are extreme. It typically involves buying and selling the same assets again within hours, minutes or even seconds.

What draws people to try day-trading is almost always the thought of getting rich quick. And in theory this is possible. Theoretically, you can earn the same amount by day-trading for one day, as you can by index investing for a decade.

Data shows only about 1% of day-traders make consistent profits in the long run. The fraction that actually make big money is even smaller. The problem is day-trading is a high-stress job with no guaranteed salary. You constantly have to worry and the mental load is extreme. 95% of day-traders fail within two years.

✅ Pros: The excitement and the idea of getting rich quick.

❌ Cons: Requires heavy tooling, heavy workload and a superhuman mentality.

⚠️ The hidden price: When things get tough, this strategy is extremely hard on your mental health and this makes most people quit.

➡️ Conclusion: My recommendation for 99.9% of people is to stay away from this strategy. It’s dangerous for your capital and your health. Only do this if you have the mental strength of a mountain.

#4: Dividend investing

You can argue that this could be categorized under stock picking, and you’re not wrong. But I often see people investing primarily for the dividend in a company and not for the business value.

The idea of an income-generating portfolio of dividend stocks is great if you are retired and want a steady flow of money without selling stocks all the time.

The other argument often cited is that high-dividend stock historically outperformed stocks with no dividend. While it’s not wrong that this used to be the case, the reason for the outperformance could typically be attributed to the profitability and valuation of the companies, not particularly the dividends.

Dividends are not a free lunch. The amount that is paid out to the investor is withdrawn from the stock price. This means a dividend payout is equivalent to selling a small fraction of your holdings in a stock. This is very important to understand.

✅ Pros: It feels good to receive regular income. Makes sense for retirees.

❌ Cons: There’s no added value in dividends. Your returns are still tied to the returns of the stocks you selected.

⚠️ The hidden price: In many cases, you are just watching the “left pocket” pay the “right pocket” while the share price stagnates. Often the dividend is high because the company is not doing well.

➡️ Conclusion: For retirees it can make sense. If the stable income makes you feel good, it can make sense as well. But for optimizing long-term wealth, there’s no benefit to dividend investing.

#5: Systematic or data-driven investing

Most investing approaches involve a lot of qualitative analysis, gut feeling and guessing. The systematic or data-driven investor attempts to eliminate this through mechanisms to signal when and what to buy or sell.

The first half of this involves finding a strategy with a consistent edge, meaning if you follow the strategy long enough, you can expect to beat the market. The second half is about sticking to the system, even when the suggested trades feel counter-intuitive.

The idea is to find repeatable patterns in historical data. If a certain pattern tends to be followed by gains, you can trade it. You move your focus away from analysing companies and markets to analysing data. It’s all about figuring out which factors or parameters have caused future outperformance with the highest possible probability.

This is a probability game, because there is no way you can predict the markets. The hard part is finding an edge with a high probability that you can actually trade. There are many pitfalls to this, from overfitting a backtest to simply not having the stomach to cope with the inevitable drawdowns and relative underperformance.

But if you can find a systematic approach with a long and consistent track record that resonates with your personality, all that’s needed is your ability to stick with it.

✅ Pros: If you’re in it for the money, this strategy has the highest expected returns with the lowest effort (depending on the system).

❌ Cons: No entertainment and lack of intellectual excitement or the ego-boost of being in total control.

⚠️ The hidden price: Looking at average returns of a system may seem promising, but beware of the drawdowns. You have to be able to stick with the strategy, even when it feels wrong.

➡️ Conclusion: This is an overlooked option for many retail investors. If you’re investing for entertainment, this is not for you. But if you’re serious and in it for highest returns, this could be your winning strategy.

Why the paradox exists

The paradox is that the most “exciting” games (stock-picking, day-trading) are usually the ones where you have the lowest chance of winning. Meanwhile, the “boring” systematic approach—the one most people ignore—is actually the one designed for the highest probability of success.

What people often miss is the hidden price of a strategy. We focus on the upside, the ceiling and the potential returns a strategy may deliver. Much less the risk, the effort needed and the burdens it puts on us.

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My revelation

I strongly believe our chances of succeeding in the markets are highly aligned with choosing the right strategy that fits our personality, our strengths and our mentality.

Personally I spent many years trying out these strategies, playing the wrong games and fighting the markets. You can read more about my journey here. Ultimately, I was never able to beat the market — until I finally had a breakthrough:

With the goal of securing financial independence, the big revelation for me was realizing I was able to build a systematic strategy that outperformed the market with high consistency and eliminated emotion and bias.

Knowing my personality and my (low-to-medium) risk appetite, I knew such a system could only work for me if the expected drawdowns were lower than for the general market. The table below shows the returns my system has delivered. 2000-2020 was backtested, while 2021-2025 is real trading:

You can read more about the simple system behind these results here:

➡️ My investment approach that outperformed the stock market in 25 of 26 years

If you want to join me and believe this strategy could be a fit for you too, just subscribe below to receive the free monthly trading signals in your inbox.

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

How does a consistently market-beating strategy work? In my first two articles I described the system behind the MarketFighter Strategy, the historical track record and how I achieved it.

If you missed them, you may want to read this article first:

My investment approach that outperformed the stock market in 25 of 26 years

Today, I’m opening the hood. I’m revealing the exact universe of assets that makes the MarketFighter Strategy tick. The same 15 indices and two baskets that allowed for a 25-of-26-year outperformance and a +20% CAGR over the past 10 years.

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The MarketFighter Universe

The strategy exploits a systematic momentum-based edge, which can be found in many areas of finance. Our focus is on the two segmentations of stocks called Factors and Sectors. These are easily accessible for retail investors through focused ETFs.

We don’t utilize all possible sectors and factors. Instead we focus on those with the best and most consistent historical track record. We want to invest in assets that tend to outperform the market in trends that can be recognized by the system.

Therefore, in both segmentations we work with a preselected basket of indices (which can be tracked using ETFs). These baskets are fixed and look like this:

🎯 The Factor Basket

• MSCI USA Momentum Factor

• MSCI USA Quality Factor

• MSCI USA Value Factor

• MSCI USA Small Cap

• MSCI Europe Momentum Factor

• MSCI Europe Quality Factor

• MSCI Europe Value Factor

• MSCI Europe Small Cap

🏅 The Sector Basket

• S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector

• S&P 500 Consumer Staples Sector

• S&P 500 Energy Sector

• S&P 500 Health Care Sector

• S&P 500 Industrials Sector

• S&P 500 Information Technology Sector

• S&P 500 Materials Sector

Why the specific factors?

You may know that factors represent characteristics identified by academic research to have a high probability of near-term outperformance compared to the broader market. There is a wealth of empirical evidence supporting this.

Specifically Momentum, Quality, Value and the Size (Small Cap) factors all have strong historical performance over long time horizons, and all four of them represent risk premiums caused by basic behavioral biases — these will most likely never disappear.

The split between US and Europe is a way to capture the market trends, and there’s a tendency for the market preferring either US stocks (which has generally been the case since 2008) or European stocks (which has been the trend lately).

These two markets together make up ~85% of the total developed market, and splitting factors between the two opens up for better opportunities for taking advantage of market-specific trends.

Why the specific sectors?

All US stocks can be categorized into one of 12 well-defined sectors. The historical performance and trends within in each sector is documented and can easily be analyzed.

Sectors tend to move up and down in trends, but some more than others. My research has revealed the seven selected sectors above represent the best combination of assets for capturing long term alpha (outperformance).

This happens because they follow different patterns and react differently to macroeconomics, changing interest rates, and media narratives. When one of them is underperforming the market, others are outperforming.

The system detects when to jump to the next wave based on historic probability caused by the recent relative momentum.

Past versus future

Be aware that both of these baskets are selected based on historical data.

I have a mindset of never attempting to predict the markets. The only information we have available is historical data, so we have to get the best out of this.

Since the patterns we exploit have been remarkably consistent over multiple decades, there should be a good probability that they may continue this. But as always, there is no such thing as guarantees in investing.

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Finding the right ETFs

You may wonder why the process deals with indices and not ETFs. This is because I’m writing for a global audience, and investors don’t have access to the same ETFs in all countries.

To follow the strategy, you just need to find an ETF on your trading platform that tracks the relevant index. In a future post I will provide lists of ETFs specifically suited for investors in Europe and in the US. Readers from other parts of the world will most likely have access to similar products.

The monthly signal

This system could be traded and rebalanced at any possible frequency or time interval. It could most likely be optimized for even better returns if you dig into alternative time frames. What I wanted to achieve, however, was a system so simple and easy to use, that anyone will be able to follow it.

That’s why I settled on only using monthly signals. This means we will only have to check the system — and potentially make a trade — once a month.

At the closing of each month, I run the algorithm that does the momentum check. In most cases the outcome is two ETFs to invest in for the coming month. Often one or both of them will be identical to last month, which means you don’t have to execute any trades.

On rare occasions the system will tell us to go cash to protect our capital in one or both of the sector/factor segments. This only happens if we are in significant market declines and it recognizes the same pattern of negative momentum that historically has been synonymous with high probability of continued declines.

Your job

So, what’s your job? First of all, make sure to subscribe, so you don’t miss a monthly signal.

The only thing you have to do after this, if you want to follow the strategy, is to execute the trade as suggested by the monthly trading signal (if the signal differs from the previous month) and make sure to allocate 50% of your money into each ETF.

Then you have to stick to the strategy. This may sound easier than it is, as all trading strategies (yes, even this one) has periods of relative underperformance compared to the market. If you trust the consistency of the historical returns, remind yourself that there will be good and bad months on the way.

✅ Here is your checklist:

1. Subscribe to receive the trading signals (it’s free!)

2. Check your inbox when the signal arrives each month

3. Check your existing holdings

4. Execute the trades needed (if any) to follow the signal

5. Wait. Be patient. Repeat the process next month.
   

“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient“

— Warren Buffett

Finally, you will have to accept that this strategy may be boring. Not everyone can handle the FOMO of not buying the hot stock picks of the time as most other investors do. But if you have a long term mindset, you possess the most important ingredient in getting success with a strategy like this.

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

Can you beat index investing in the long run? Most people can’t. Even most professional fund managers and analysts can’t. Anyone can hit a lucky streak of a few good years, but very few manage to persistently win over a decade or more.

In this article, I will explain how I found a way to consistently outperform the markets. The system is simple. It has worked for more than 25 years. And it’s easy for anyone to copy, if you follow along.

Why is it so difficult?

Outperforming the market is notoriously difficult because stock returns are heavily skewed. A tiny fraction of "superstar" stocks account for nearly all of the index's long-term gains. If you don’t happen to own those few massive winners, you are almost guaranteed to underperform the aggregate average.

My own journey of investing illustrates the point:

1. When I first started out more than 20 years ago, I pursued “hot tips” in newspapers and shady internet communities.

2. Figuring I wouldn’t be able to gain an edge doing fundamental analysis, I started studying technical analysis and trend following, inspired by the Turtle Traders and countless other books I read on the subject.

3. Then I read books on contrarian investing, convinced that doing the opposite of the “losing crowd” would eventually make me a winner.

4. At some point, after many years of failing to beat the market, I concluded that index investing was the only way forward. At least it provided better returns than all my previous attempts.

5. Somehow the index returns were just not enough for me, and my curiosity led me to research factor investing, partly inspired by Jeremy Siegel’s famous book Stocks for the Long Run.

The list above is a brief breakdown of 15 years of my own mediocre experience on the stock market. None of the strategies materialized into returns that fulfilled my quest for winning in this game.

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How can you actually beat the market?

If you haven’t heard about factor investing, it’s a term for investing based on factors that academic research has identified as having high probability of predicting above-market returns.

Simply put, stocks with high exposure to one of the following factors have historically performed better than the overall market (on average, and over decade-long time horizons, that is):

• VALUE 🪙
  Stocks that are trading at relatively low prices
  

• MOMENTUM 🏃
  Stocks that have recently performed better than most
  

• QUALITY 💎
  Stocks with high and consistent profitability
  

• SIZE 🐣
  Stocks with relatively small market capitalization value

An ETF consisting of stocks with high exposure to any of these factors would have outperformed the market significantly, if you had owned it for 20+ years.

But here’s the problem:

The relative performance of these factors is very inconsistent and has extended (sometimes decade-long) periods of underperformance relative to the market. This makes it psychologically next to impossible to stick to these strategies.

The missing ingredient

Obsessed with the idea of outperforming the market, I kept studying, reading books, blogs, academic research and everything that could get me closer to my goal.

A book titled Dual Momentum Investing by Gary Antonacci inspired me to do my own research into ETF-rotation. The idea was simple:

1. Find a small set of ETFs that tend to move up and down in trends, but with low correlation to each other - when one goes down, one of the others typically go up.

2. Then set up an interval (1 month for instance) for checking which ETF had the best performance over a given period (12 months for instance).

3. Finally, put your money into the ETF with the best relative performance over the defined period.

4. Repeat the steps above each month.

It struck me, that this concept could be the missing ingredient for factor investing. If I could find a way to rotate successfully between specific factor ETFs, that would make things really interesting.

I wanted to build a simple system like Antonacci’s that could tell me each month which factor to invest in. At the same time, turning it into a system would eliminate all human emotion and gut-feeling in the decision-making.

Most investors fail because they sell during drawdowns or buy the top of a fad. Having a simple system make my decisions would be a game-changer.

Back-testing and confidence

I was also aware that I would never fully rely on this system, if I didn’t feel 100% confident in its performance and consistency. The only way I could gain this confidence was to build a huge back-test. So I found performance data for the MSCI factor indices going back to 1999 and tested various combinations of rebalancing and look-back intervals, factors to include and regions to consider.

And that’s when it happened. No matter which look-back period or rebalancing interval I tried, the resulting system outperformed the market significantly!

I was mind-blown. The concept of mixing academic factor investing with simple momentum-based rotation turned out to be a recipe for winning in the stock market.

These were the results I originally got when testing over the 21-year period from 2000 to 2020:

The skepticism

I’m always extremely skeptical when someone claims they are able to beat the market. Usually it can be attributed to one of the following scenarios:

1. You were lucky to pick some stocks that did well for a while (fooled by randomness), but you believe it was pure skill.
   

2. You hold an ETF or fund that did better than the market over a given timeframe and believe it will continue indefinitely.
   

3. You created a trading system and overfitted it, to make the back-test look great.

Since my case of outperformance was based on a back-tested trading system, you would think the last bullet (overfitting) played a part. And even though the entire system is based one single piece of output (monthly prices), I was still worried that my back-tested results would not continue.

That’s why I didn’t go public with my idea in the beginning in 2021. I just started trading it myself, putting more and more money into it and gaining more and more confidence as the numbers continued to shine.

The volatility and declining markets in 2022 was a great proof of the concept. Not only did the system survive. It smashed the index, delivering a positive return of more than 10%. This was real, and not just back-tested data anymore.

And here I am, five years later. Five years of continued outperformance in each calendar year compared to the MSCI World Index. Now with the confidence that my finding was real, and not just the result of a poorly designed back-test.

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Combining factors with sectors

Still buzzing over the potential of my finding, I kept thinking about other applications of the concept. I wanted a system that would be easy to implement as a retail investor, and factor indexes are super easy to implement, because there are ETFs available that capture these already.

This soon led me to apply the same concept to sectors. There are ETFs available for each sector of the market as well, and applying the same simple momentum-based rotation principle to these yielded even better results, although with slightly higher volatility and annual fluctuations:

Combining the two strategies created a huge diversification benefit: Both delivered strong outperformance, but at different times. Sometimes the Momentum Factor stocks would be down, but then the Energy Sector stocks would go up, for instance. This helps in smoothing the distribution of returns and makes you sleep better at night.

The final piece: Drawdown protection

As a final piece to the puzzle, I had a theory growing in my head that I would try to apply the same momentum logic to the market itself - not rotating it with other assets, but with NOT being in the market. If this could work in practice, I would get a means of drawdown protection - systematically going cash, when momentum tells me to.

So, again I sat down and played with the data, trying out variations of simple lookback intervals of momentum. And again I had positive results, almost no matter which combination I tried. Momentum really is everywhere, and the possibilities for application are vastly underestimated.

Testing on monthly S&P 500 data all the way back to 1871, my simple drawdown mitigation mechanism would have delivered superior returns and avoided the deepest drawdowns on the way:

You may notice that most of the outperformance comes during the great crashes: The Great Depression of the 1930s, The Great Financial Crisis in 2008, the DotCom Bubble in 2000-2002 and the great oil crises of the 1970s.

This setup was achieved ONLY by applying a simple rotation filter that looks back on monthly prices of the market index.

Putting it all together

Now, let’s put it all together to form the system I have been investing my personal funds in for the last five years.

In both the Factor and the Sector strategies I apply the drawdown protection strategy. This improves the average returns significantly, but only by going to cash in certain months during deep crashes. These are rare occasions. The system has been invested in the market in 93% of the entire period.

Now that both of the core strategies have been improved by the drawdown strategy, I simply put 50% of my money into each of them.

So, to put it short: At the turn of each month, I check which factor index had the best relative momentum according to my lookback. Then, unless the drawdown check signals a move to cash, I put 50% of my money into the corresponding ETF. Exactly the same procedure goes for the sector strategy.

Execution of this strategy takes less than 15 minutes per month.

Finally I ended up with a chart like this, where the 2000-2020 period comes from back-tested results, while 2021-2025 is real data, where I actively traded the strategy:

It looks almost absurd in a linear-scale chart on such a long timeframe. That’s the power of compounding that really kicks in, when applied over multiple decades, but it also illustrates the extreme long term potential of the system. Personally though, I prefer to look at long term charts using logarithmic scale, which allows me to see the fluctuations and linearity of the returns over time:

Notice the y-axis in this chart. Notice the nice linearity of the yellow line, representing the robustness and consistency of the combined strategy, which is remarkable compared to both the MSCI World Index and the S&P 500.

Distribution of returns

The performance and absolute returns of the strategy are excellent on their own, but where this strategy really shines is in its consistent distribution of returns and the absence of bad years. This illustration is at the core of the strategy. The part that gives me most confidence in bad periods. And the part that I’m most proud of:

A few highlights are worth paying attention to:

• The strategy beat the MSCI World Index in 25 of the 26 years where data exists

• The worst year of relative performance was -1.18% compared to the index in 2012

• The worst year of absolute performance was -10.24% during the GFC in 2008

• It massively outperformed the index in bad market years like 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2022, which all resulted in alpha values above 20% for the strategy.

Performance data for the full period, 2000-2025:

Strategy CAGR: 16.21%

World Index CAGR: 3.84%

$1,000 invested in 2000 would now be worth $49,646

Be aware that this specific period is a bit special because it starts at the heights of the DotCom Bubble in 2000 - hence the very low CAGR for the World Index in the period.

Performance data for the last 10 years, 2016-2025:

Strategy CAGR: 20.16%

World Index CAGR: 9.44%

$1,000 invested 10 years ago would now be worth $6,274

The house always wins

Using the MarketFighter strategy I’m no longer trying to guess the market or acting on emotion. Instead I rely on data evidence and the statistical edge.

It has become a probability game, like in casinos where the house always wins in the long run. I feel like I’m the house now.

For five years I have invested most of my money using this strategy, and I’m planning to continue doing so for many years. You can do the same by simply subscribing, wait for the free monthly trade update and invest accordingly. Be a MarketFighter.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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All numbers and performance metrics in this article are before taxes and trading fees, measured from a Euro-based investor perspective. The numbers are slightly different for a USD-based investor because of currency fluctuations, but the principles remain the same.

Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.

Hello, and welcome to MarketFighter!

Most investors are fighting a losing battle. They fight the 24-hour news cycle. They fight “expert” predictions. They fight their own psychological impulses: greed, fear, bias, and FOMO.

Research shows that between 80% and 90% of all retail investors lose money in the stock market. This is staggering, considering that simply holding a market-wide index returns 7–9% annually if you hold it long enough.

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The Breaking Point

A late night in February 2021, I found a way to beat the system. For years, I had fought the same fight, struggling just to keep pace with general market returns.

Real change began to materialize when I started researching trading systems, algorithms, and systems design. I wanted to build a strategy that:

• Could beat the market by at least 5% annually over a long-term horizon.

• Would not experience drawdowns as deep as the general market during crashes.

• Would be simple to trade for a regular retail investor.

• Would only require action once a month.

• Would be completely systematic, eliminating emotional decision-making.

• Would prove its worth consistently over 25 years of market data.
  

The Quantitative Proof

To be honest, when I found the solution and the backtest results first materialized, I approached them with extreme skepticism. I spent months trying to "break" the system or find data errors. I didn't want a black box. I wanted a repeatable, logical edge.

The system consists of just a few basic momentum rules. I will elaborate on why this works in later posts, but for now, I want to share the historical results. These figures represent a 25-year commitment to momentum logic:

• Annual outperformance vs. MSCI World (2000–2025):
  10.48%

• Worst year of outperformance:
  -2.15% (2012)

• Best year of outperformance:
  29.11% (2022)

• Worst year of absolute return:
  -10.33% (2002)

• Best year of absolute return:
  37.79% (2009)

• Annual absolute return (last 10 years):
  20.79%

These results are remarkably consistent, and the risk-adjusted returns are beyond anything I have ever seen. This is not just a backtest—I have invested the majority of my personal funds using this system since 2021, and I can tell you that it continues to shine here in early 2026.

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The plan for MarketFighter

Having tested this over a five-year period, I am now ready to share it with the world. I’ve moved the MarketFighter blog and domain to Substack to deliver monthly trading signals to anyone who wants to follow the same system.

By moving to Substack, I hope to build a community of "MarketFighters" who value logic over hype, evidence over emotion, and probability over "hot tips."

As with any investment, I cannot guarantee that future performance will match the past. You must judge for yourself whether you believe these simple momentum patterns will continue to work. What I can provide are the monthly signals. At the beginning of each month, I will publish a post specifying exactly which ETFs to own for the coming month.

The system is simple. It consists of two groups of ETFs: Factors and Sectors. Most months, the system will suggest one ETF from each group. On rare occasions it will move to cash, and suggest investing in none of them or just one of them.

I promise to give you more details in coming posts!

The March 2026 signals

For the coming month of March 2026, the MarketFighter system will hold the following positions, equally weighted:

THE FACTOR ALLOCATION (50%):
MSCI Europe Enhanced Value

THE SECTOR ALLOCATION (50%):
S&P 500 Energy Sector

US investors can implement the signal by holding these ETFs:

• IVLU ticker (ISIN: US46435G4091)

• XLE ticker (ISIN: US81369Y5069)

European investors can implement the signal by holding these ETFs:

• IEVL ticker (ISIN: IE00BQN1K901)

• QDVF ticker (ISIN: IE00B42NKQ00)

Hold the two positions until you receive the next signal from the MarketFighter system, when we reach April. Don’t forget to subscribe for more details on the system and for future trading signals!

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Disclaimer: The MarketFighter Strategy is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial advice, and the author is not a licensed investment advisor. Investing in ETFs involves significant risk, and past performance is never a guarantee of future results. You are solely responsible for your own trades and financial outcomes. Read the full Disclaimer here.