Calendar-Based Sell-in-May, Buy-in-September Long Strategy

Summary

This simple seasonal rule uses the calendar month alone to manage a long position: it enters when September begins and closes the long when May begins. It does not use price, technical indicators, or market conditions to time those actions. The document presents simplicity as the main practical feature, since the rule needs no complex analysis or calculations.

The article also outlines important limits: fixed dates can close a position during a continuing bull market or leave a trader exposed during a bear market, and the rule has no trade-specific method for adjusting position size. It notes that execution costs such as slippage are not considered. Published backtest settings identify BTC/USDT futures and daily bars over approximately one year, but no performance figures or comparison are provided. The document characterizes the rule as illustrative rather than suitable for live trading, so the supplied settings should not be read as evidence that the seasonal effect is reliable.

Key ideas

• The rule enters a long position when September begins and closes it when May begins.
• Trading decisions depend on the calendar month rather than price or market conditions.
• The fixed schedule can exit too early in rising markets or fail to respond to falling markets.
• The approach does not describe trade-specific position sizing or account for slippage.
• Published backtest settings are given, but no performance results are reported.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.