Oil since 1965: crash-rule exits judged by your momentum plan

source: FRED WTISPLC (WTI spot, monthly average); Yahoo ^GSPC month-ends + Shiller dividends (pre-1996 spells); plan backtest state/tmp/mom (1996+ spells, its own S&P-with-dividends signal) • transform: Shaded = months the crash rule (S&P 500 with dividends below 12 months earlier, at a month-end) held cash. Bands judged by Mike's momentum plan (top 3 by 6-month gain, 50/25/25, monthly, no rule): purple = staying invested would have done worse than T-bills over the cash spell (real crash), yellow = better (fakeout). Grey = before the plan's data starts (1996), not judged. Dashed lines: S&P peak before each fall of ~20%+ (1990 was 19.9%). Red lines: the month-end the crash rule says sell (trade next day). Orange lines: the first day in that run-up when a daily check (S&P with dividends below the same day a year earlier) would have said sell. • drawn 2026-11-06 00:19 UTC