Set your allocation, pick any stretch — 2008, 2020, 2022 — and watch it compound month by month through the market's worst years. Built for one question: how much would you have kept when the market fell?
Pick a stretch of history and set your allocation across everyday index ETFs — QQQ, S&P 500, mid and small cap, treasuries, bonds, gold. It compounds your allocation month by month through the real market, then lays it against the Alpha Edge tactical model, so you can see the drawdowns you'd have lived through, not just the growth.
You've seen it hold up. Now project the same funds forward 20 years — your allocation carries straight over.
The index fund industry is built around a simple premise: stay invested, diversify broadly, and hold. That works — until a bad market cuts your portfolio in half. Alpha Edge is built around a different principle.
In 2008, the S&P 500 dropped 37%. A 60/40 portfolio dropped 22%. Alpha Edge's model rotated away from equities before the worst periods — finishing the year positive.
A −37% loss requires a +59% gain just to break even. By avoiding the worst years, the model spends more time compounding at positive rates — which is where the long-term advantage builds.
Most investors panic-sell at bottoms and buy back in too late. A rules-based monthly update removes emotion from the equation entirely — one monthly update, one trade, done.
Alpha Edge runs disciplined, rules-based research and distills it into one clear action. No complex decisions. No watching the market daily. Approximately five minutes per month.
On the first trading day of each month, Retirement Edge publishes the Alpha Edge update — which index ETF to hold this month.
Log into your dashboard. See the update and the reasoning behind it. Most months, no change is needed — you simply hold.
When a change is called for, log into your brokerage account and make one trade. You're in control of every decision from start to finish.
Monthly updates sit in a sweet spot: frequent enough to respond to real market regime changes, but infrequent enough to avoid whipsawing on short-term noise. The model typically changes allocations only three or four times per year.
That means most months you simply hold — no action needed. And when the model does call for a change, you act once and move on. No monitoring required in between.
Learn the Full Methodology →Alpha Edge has backtested data through the biggest market crises of the past two decades. Here's how it performed when buy-and-hold strategies were at their worst.
The S&P 500 lost 37%. Most target-date and lifecycle funds fell 20–40%. The Alpha Edge model's rules-based rotation moved away from equities before the worst of the collapse.
Alpha Edge: Positive yearA decade of nearly uninterrupted growth. Buy-and-hold investors did well — but the model's rotation toward the highest-performing index ETF each month compounded significantly faster than passive allocation.
Alpha Edge: Double-digit annual growthIn March 2020, the S&P 500 fell 34% in 33 days — the fastest bear market in history. The model's monthly update rotated to a defensive position ahead of the steepest portion of the decline.
Alpha Edge: Positive year (+strong recovery)Both stocks and bonds fell sharply in 2022 — a rare simultaneous decline that hit even conservative portfolios hard. The model rotated into non-correlated assets including gold and money market instruments.
Alpha Edge: Positive yearAcross the full backtested period including all four major corrections, Alpha Edge has not recorded a single losing calendar year — with a 19.96% backtested CAGR vs 10.98% for VFIAX (Vanguard 500 Index).
Alpha Edge: 19.96% CAGR · Zero losing years
Annual returns, rolling returns, drawdown chart, risk vs return scatter, and the complete backtest dataset.
It replays your exact index ETF allocation — QQQ, S&P 500, mid and small cap, treasuries, bonds, gold and money-market — month by month through real market history from January 2006 through December 2025, including the 2008 crash, the 2020 COVID drop, and the 2022 bear market. It lays the Alpha Edge model beside your allocation so you can see the drawdowns you'd have lived through, not just the ending balance. All figures are backtested and hypothetical.
Because a deep loss at the wrong time does lasting damage. A −50% year needs a +100% gain just to get back to even, and every year spent recovering is a year not compounding forward. An average return hides that — the worst year is where real portfolios get hurt. The Investment Safety Check reports the worst 12-month stretch for both your allocation and the Alpha Edge model, so you can compare what you'd have kept, not just what you'd have earned on paper.
Very few buy-and-hold strategies beat the S&P 500 over long periods after costs — and the ones that do typically take on more risk. Alpha Edge takes a different approach: instead of holding more aggressive assets, it rotates into the best-performing index category each month, avoiding the worst downturns. Its backtested 19.96% CAGR vs 10.98% for VFIAX (Vanguard 500 Index) over Jan 2006–Dec 2025 reflects that difference. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
It uses 240 monthly return observations — January 2006 through December 2025 — sourced from Portfolio Visualizer, across everyday index ETFs. Working at monthly resolution means any window you pick is honest, even one that begins or ends mid-crash (like the depths of 2020). All results are hypothetical and backtested; real returns vary year to year and may be negative.
Alpha Edge is a rules-based monthly update service from Retirement Edge. Each month, the model analyzes market conditions and publishes one clear update: which index ETF the model holds this month. You log into your brokerage account, make one trade, and you're done — usually in about 5 minutes. The model uses only everyday index ETFs (QQQ, SPY, bonds, gold, money market) — no options, no leverage, no shorts or derivatives.
This calculator and all content on Retirement Edge is investment research and publishing, not personalized investment advice. Retirement Edge is not a registered investment adviser. We publish research — you review it and make every investment decision independently. (Publisher exemption: Section 202(a)(11)(D) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.)
Alpha Edge launches October 1. Reserve your founding rate now — 20% off your first year. We email you a few days before launch to start the trial, and you’re never charged if you cancel during the 60 days. It's offered alongside TSP Edge and 401(k) Edge, and you can start on the pricing page to be first in line when it goes live.
Have a workplace retirement account — or want to see the strategy behind the numbers? Start here.
See the rules-based strategy behind this backtest, or reserve your founding rate before the October 1 launch — 20% off your first year as a founding member.
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