BTS Strength Zones — Industry ETFs Backtest

BTS Strength Zones — Industry ETFs is a long-only tactical allocation strategy built to pursue targeted equity participation from the premise that recurring calendar windows can identify favorable periods for Industry ETF exposure, using published BTS Strength Zones and a portfolio-level VIX 50/35 admission regime across Industry ETFs, with SPY or SHY used when no zone is entered.

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Strategy summary

BTS Strength Zones — Industry ETFs is a long-only, event-driven tactical equity allocation model. The BTS Industry ETFs Heatmap supplies 58 published BTS Strength Zone windows across 37 active Industry ETFs, while a portfolio-level VIX 50/35 regime determines whether an active zone may enter.

The strategy uses recurring calendar windows to seek targeted equity exposure. The VIX regime controls admission, scheduled zone endings control exits, and a blocked zone may enter later if the regime returns to ON while the zone remains active.

The traded set combines 37 active Industry ETFs with two fallback ETFs, SPY and SHY. The fixed 49-ETF universe includes 12 members with no published BTS Strength Zone; those ETFs receive no offensive allocation.

Full Industry ETF universe: BIZD, CIBR, COPX, CRAK, EVX, FAN, FCG, FDN, GDX, GDXJ, ICLN, IEZ, IGF, IGV, IHI, IPAY, JETS, KBE, KBWP, KCE, KIE, KRE, LIT, MLPX, MOO, MORT, NLR, PBJ, PEJ, PHO, REMX, REZ, SIL, SKYY, SLX, SOCL, TAN, WOOD, XAR, XBI, XHB, XHS, XME, XOP, XPH, XRT, XSD, XTL, and XTN.

Each Industry ETF becomes historically eligible at the first true strategy Open of its first full calendar year. No partial-inception-year, synthetic, padded, predecessor-spliced, or substitute history is used.

Once admitted, each ETF remains held through its scheduled BTS Strength Zone and exits at the Close of its final trading day. At target-decision events, all entered BTS Strength Zone ETFs are equal-weighted.

The portfolio remains long-only and targets full investment whenever a complete target is set; temporary cash may appear only between final-zone Close exits and the next-Open portfolio reconstruction. Entered BTS Strength Zone ETFs receive the full allocation; with zero entered zones, SPY carries the ON state and SHY carries the OFF state.

What this strategy is not

• Not a VIX exit strategy: a later OFF signal does not terminate or resize a BTS Strength Zone that has already entered.
• Not a relative-strength ranking model: the strategy does not select only the highest-ranked Industry ETF or rotate into a single winner.
• Not a fixed 49-ETF basket or daily equal-weight portfolio: only entered zones receive weight, and routine market drift does not trigger rebalancing.
• Instead: it is an event-driven allocation model that admits published BTS Strength Zones while the portfolio-level VIX regime is ON, holds admitted zones to their scheduled ending, and uses SPY or SHY when no zone is entered.

How to interpret BTS Zones

BTS Zones is a systematic historical research framework for identifying recurring periods of relative strength across standardized BTS Weeks.

The Tools section publishes seven BTS Heatmaps, each for a different market universe. The corresponding backtest pages apply a consistent strategy framework to the published BTS Strength Zones for each heatmap, documenting how the zones translate into portfolio positions and trading decisions.

See how the BTS Heatmaps and their Strength Zones backtests are standardized for direct comparison across market universes.

All BTS Heatmaps use the same governing BTS Strength Zone formulas and the same qualification, ranking, overlap, and selection rules. BTS Heatmaps are not individually tuned. Candidate windows must demonstrate persistent relative strength, statistical support, sufficient move magnitude and concentration, and acceptable quality characteristics before they can qualify.

Within each BTS Heatmap, a BTS Strength Zone is a locked recurring BTS Week interval. The same interval is fixed for every year and is not selected again after each year’s results are known.

BTS Strength Zones are derived from historical data and should be understood as in-sample findings, not as forecasts or independent out-of-sample validation. Each page identifies the fixed universe used for its BTS Heatmap. On this page, the same 49-ETF universe is used throughout the analysis; it does not attempt to reconstruct every Industry ETF that was available at each historical date.

The backtest applies the published BTS Strength Zones through a separate portfolio implementation. A recurring BTS Strength Zone does not necessarily produce a portfolio entry each year because entry also depends on asset eligibility, valid source history, and the portfolio-level VIX regime.

Execution, costs, dividends, portfolio accounting, and reporting follow the standard BTS Methodology.

Report summary

Item	Value
Strategy	BTS Strength Zones — Industry ETFs
Category	Tactical allocation / VIX-regime BTS Strength Zones
Universe	49 Industry ETFs; SPY and SHY are fallback assets; $VIX and $SPX are non-traded references
Trade Direction	Long-only allocation
Free Preview Window	2021–2025 (5 years); BTS uses the five most recent whole calendar years for free previews.
Full Backtest Period	2003–2025 (23 years); BTS uses the available whole-calendar-year window supported by required history and methodology rules.
Window Start Rule	The last valid pre-window $VIX Close establishes the opening regime. IGV is the only active offensive ETF eligible at the January 2, 2003 Open; later ETFs activate at the first true strategy Open of their first full calendar year.
Starting Capital	$10,000
Primary Benchmark	SPY buy-and-hold
Methodology Version	BTS-3377
Publication Date	June 27, 2026
Source / Credit	Brian Ernest Metzger; BTS Zones methodology and BTS Industry ETFs Heatmap

Benchmark summary

BTS Strength Zones are defined using relative performance versus $SPX. Separately, the primary portfolio benchmark is buy-and-hold SPY, which preserves continuous passive exposure to the broad U.S. equity market.

All reported performance measures the complete modeled BTS Zones portfolio implementation, not the BTS Strength Zone methodology in isolation.

For the benchmark-selection framework, see How to Choose the Right Benchmark.

• Primary Benchmark: buy-and-hold SPY.
• Preserves: continuous passive broad U.S. equity-market exposure.
• Removes: the published BTS Strength Zone schedule, VIX-gated admission, Industry ETF selection, equal allocation across entered zones, scheduled exits, and the SPY/SHY fallback.
• Excludes: a holdings-matched comparison using the same Industry ETF holdings. The performance difference versus SPY therefore cannot be attributed to the BTS Strength Zone schedule alone.

Key metrics: 2021–2025 free preview

• The free preview is a recent-window orientation tool, not the complete evidence set.
• A five-year preview period can be useful, but it can also overstate or understate the full historical tradeoff.
• The full report expands the scorecard across the complete report window and adds the path-level interpretation behind the headline numbers.

The 2021–2025 preview shows a large return advantage alongside a mixed risk profile. A rebased $10,000 account finished at $55,827 versus $19,791 for buy-and-hold SPY, with CAGR of 41.2% versus 14.7%. Strategy volatility was higher at 20.4% versus 17.1%, but maximum drawdown was smaller at -18.3% versus -24.5%, and Sharpe was higher at 1.8 versus 0.9. The visible tradeoff is implementation intensity: 332.0 modeled executions per year, a 66.5% FIFO Win Rate, and Time in Market rounded to 99.6%.

Category	Metric	Strategy	Benchmark
Activity	Time in Market	99.6%	100.0%
Activity	Trades per Year	332.0	—
Activity	Win Rate	66.5%	—
Risk	Volatility	20.4%	17.1%
Risk	Max Drawdown	-18.3%	-24.5%
Risk	Sharpe Ratio	1.8	0.9
Risk	Calmar Ratio	2.2	0.6
Result	CAGR	41.2%	14.7%
Result	Ending Capital	$55,827	$19,791

Further research

• BTS Methodology
• What Makes a Backtest Reliable?
• Why a Standardized Methodology Matters in Backtesting
• How to Choose the Right Benchmark
• Strategy Library