The cleanest test on the shelf. Change one sleeve, hold everything else.
Both strategies run the same fifty momentum names, the same eighty percent in equity, rebalanced every two weeks. The only thing that moves is the defensive fifth. Allcap Multi Asset splits it ten debt and ten gold. TotalMarket Hybrid puts the whole twenty into debt and skips gold.
| Same 50 stocks . 80 pct equity |
With gold |
Gold-free |
| CAGR . 5 year backtest | 43.57 | 42.62 |
| Sharpe . return per unit risk | 1.79 | 1.75 |
| Max drawdown | -21.35 | -21.85 |
| Days to recover the hole | 371 | 406 |
Add it up and the entire gold sleeve bought 0.95 of a point of CAGR, 0.04 of Sharpe, a drawdown half a point shallower and a recovery 35 days quicker. Real, and modest, in this one five year window. The gold-free twin hands most of that back for a single thing in return. One less holding to track and rebalance every fortnight.