Beat the S&P 500 by
owning less of it.
Twice a year all 500 of the largest US companies are ranked on the cash they generate, and the weakest half is dropped. You get the companies that survive, how much of each to hold, and the exact number of shares to buy — enough to build the portfolio outright, or to check against what you already own.
Growth on money invested at the start, dividends included, net of trading costs, against the S&P 500 Total Return. A backtest is not a live account. How this is calculated.
Backtested on 28.5 years of point-in-time filings, dividends included, net of trading costs, against the S&P 500 Total Return. Past performance does not predict future results.
What arrives, and what keeps arriving
A new book each January and July, in three parts: which companies to hold, how much of each, and how many shares that comes to for the amount you have. Below is Balanced as it stands today, with the company names hidden.
Every company the screen kept this period, with its sector. The 250 it excluded are published in full, names and all.
How much of the book each position is, worked out from company size. The largest can run to about a fifth — big positions are not trimmed back.
Whole shares, worked to the amount you enter. Nothing rounds to a fraction no broker will sell.
Every position re-ranked and re-weighted on the latest filings. About half the names change.
If a holding is bought, delisted or stops reporting, its replacement arrives with the trade to make.
The second reset. Even where the names hold, six months of price moves have pulled the weights off.
The same watch on the holdings, and the book left alone until January.
The companies behind the record
The businesses the screen has held across 57 half-yearly periods since 1998. The companies in the book right now are withheld; the ones it has held in the past are not.
Periods counts the half-years each company was held, out of 57. Avg return is the mean six-month return over those periods only, not over all 57. Up is how often it rose while held.
The eight most-held of 313 companies the screen has held at some point. Companies that later went bust or were bought out are counted in the record too, so the returns above are not just the survivors.
Eight of the 57 half-years in the record. Across all 57 the book finished ahead in 31 of them and behind in 26. Winning slightly more often is not where the difference comes from: the wins are bigger. An average half-year ahead was 10.37% clear of the index; an average half-year behind was 3.70% short of it. Compounded over 28.5 years that gap is the whole gap.
The 250 companies we will not own
The weakest companies on cash generation trailed the rest by about four points a year, in the first half of the record and again in the second. The list is published in full, free, with no account. Check it against what you already hold.
151 trading strategies, tested the same way
Each one was specified on 1998–2014, then measured once on the eleven years set aside before any of it started. Thirteen survived that test. Three of them shape the portfolios below.
Reported profit depends on judgement calls — when a sale is booked, how quickly an asset is written down. Cash actually collected does not. Of 108 measures tested, cash generation was the strongest.
The weakest companies on cash trailed the rest by about four points a year, and by a similar margin in each half of the record. Selecting winners was markedly less reliable, so the method removes 250 companies.
Rebalancing more often did not improve the result and did cost more. The only thing that moves the book in between is a takeover or a failure.
Most of these are other people's published research. A strategy that fails here failed on this universe, over this window, under our reading of its rules — which is a statement about the test, not about the original paper.
Portfolios and pricing
Over the last ten years the three returned within 1.5 points a year of each other. The deepest fall ranged from -28% to -19%. Over that window the setting being chosen is the ride, not the return.
Ahead of the index in 31 of 57 half-years — a little more often than not. The gap comes from the size of those wins: an average of 10.4 points ahead in a good half-year against 3.7 points behind in a bad one.
~49 orders a year
Ahead of the index in 35 of 57 half-years — a little more often than not. The gap comes from the size of those wins: an average of 6.5 points ahead in a good half-year against 4.3 points behind in a bad one.
~63 orders a year
Ahead of the index in 31 of 57 half-years — a little more often than not. The gap comes from the size of those wins: an average of 5.8 points ahead in a good half-year against 4.5 points behind in a bad one.
~78 orders a year
Ten years to 2026, net of trading costs, against the S&P 500 Total Return. Over the full 28.5-year record the spread is wider — 16.76%, 13.93% and 11.63% a year — and the ordering matches the volatility ordering. Both full record for each is on its own page. Switching between settings is free and the price does not change.
Size a position before subscribing
Put in what you have to invest and how much of a fall you could sit through. It picks the setting that matches, shows the range of five-year results that setting actually produced, and tells you whether your amount is enough to buy the book in whole shares — which is what decides whether any of this is practical for you.
Eight in ten of the 48 overlapping five-year stretches fell in that range. The worst ran at -0.15% a year for five years. This is a record, not a forecast, and the next five years may fall outside it.
25 positions round to a whole share at this amount. Those that do not come to 2.52% of the book between them. The whole book fits from $15,000.
after 20 years at the full-record rate, against $161,259 in the index, with the €19 a month taken out of the portfolio annually.
The things you are right to ask
What exactly arrives, and when?
A reset book in January and July: the list, the weight of every position, and an order list in whole shares for a stated amount. In between, a note whenever a holding is taken over, delisted or stops filing, with the replacement and the order to make the swap.
Why keep paying between resets?
Two resets a year is the visible part. The rest is the watch: across the record, holdings were taken over or ceased trading often enough that a book left untouched for a year drifts away from the method it was built on. A lapsed subscription also means the next reset does not arrive, leaving a snapshot of a ranking that has since moved.
Do I need to create an account?
No. Card details go to the payment processor at signup, never to this site, and there is no password to set. A link arrives by email and opens the book; it works on any device and a fresh one can be sent whenever it is needed.
Is this financial advice?
No. Every subscriber receives the identical list, and nothing is assessed against any individual's circumstances, objectives or tax position. It is general investment research published to a fixed method, with the disclosures required under EU market-abuse rules on every page.
Why not simply buy an index tracker?
A tracker costs almost nothing — roughly €7 a year on €10,000 — and in exchange it owns the weakest half of the market alongside the strongest. This ranks the same 500 companies on the cash they generate and leaves the weaker half out, at the cost of two sets of orders a year and a subscription. Whether that trade is worth it is the question, and a tracker is a perfectly sound answer.
How much trading does this involve?
Two sittings a year. There is no daily signal and nothing to monitor. Trading costs are already deducted from every figure published here, at 0.2% of the fraction of the book that changes hands.
What if the amount available is small?
The calculator above answers it for any amount. Below roughly $10,000 the smaller positions stop rounding to a single share, and what remains is a partial version of the book that will not track the published record exactly. The calculator says so when that happens.
These are US shares. What about currency and tax?
The holdings are US-listed and priced in dollars, so a return measured in your own currency also carries the exchange rate movement. US withholding tax on dividends applies and is reduced by treaty for most EU residents once a W-8BEN is on file with the broker. Tax treatment is a matter for an individual's own adviser and nothing here accounts for it.
What happens on cancelling?
Cancelling inside the first seven days charges nothing. Afterwards the subscription runs to the end of the paid month and the book already delivered stays readable. No further resets arrive.
What if the method stops working?
It may. When academics re-test a published market edge on fresh data, about a quarter of the advantage disappears, and more than half of it goes once the finding has circulated widely and others trade on it. That is why eleven years were set aside here and examined once. Where a setting failed on those held-back years it was not published.
Who produces this?
The producer is Purple Turtle, the publishing name for research produced in a personal capacity in Denmark by Christian Mortensen, Pakhusgården 28, 5000 Odense, Denmark. That is stated in full on the terms page and linked from every disclosure block, because EU market-abuse rules require the producer of research to be identified when it is published and not at the point something is sold. Not authorised or supervised by Finanstilsynet: general research published identically to every reader does not require it. The producer holds the same portfolios, and those positions are disclosed with every ranking.
Seven days, then €19 a month.
The list, the weights and the order list, unlocked in place. Cancelled inside seven days, nothing is charged.
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