Flowsurfer
The strategy

Ride the drift.

Flowsurfer is a fully-mechanical momentum sleeve for liquid US equities. It doesn't predict the market — it harvests a slow, well-documented leak in prices, and steps aside before the move exhausts.

Why it works — the diffusion clock

When analysts revise estimates up, or a company beats earnings, the price doesn't fully adjust that day. The new information leaks into price over weeks to months — revision drift and post-earnings drift. That slow adjustment is the edge.

Flowsurfer isn't trying to be fast. It enters after the first surveilled hours, once capital is visibly responding, and exits as the drift fades. You will be slower than a pod shop on detection — and you don't need to win that race.

What it is — and isn't

It's a sleeve, not a market substitute: a handful of names, deliberately partial exposure. Historically it runs near 0.3 beta — roughly a third as exposed as the index — so in a raging bull it trails the market on raw return.

What it offers instead is alpha (return the market doesn't explain) and downside protection: the crowding veto keeps it out of euphoric names, and hard stops cut losers fast. It's built to lose less when momentum crashes.

How it decides

Two gates, then a ranked score

Entry is not a weighted sum. A name must clear both gates before its score even counts — the buy is good news PLUS evidence capital is responding, and it must not be euphoric.

Catalyst
A reason to own

An earnings revision or a news event that should pull price over the following weeks. The strongest, most durable input — revision drift persists for months.

Confirmation
Capital responding

Relative strength vs the market, sector and peers, plus volume behaving like accumulation. Proof the move is real, not a quote blip. Required to enter.

Crowding
Are we late?

A 0–100 lateness score — distance above moving averages, overbought RSI, how long the move has run. Above the ceiling it's a hard veto: never buy euphoria.

Crowding below ceilingPrice AND volume confirmRank survivors by compositeHold the strongest, rotate upExit on decay or hard stop

There is no manual override anywhere in the system — no button to hold, add, or exit on a hunch. Entries and exits are score-driven or stop-driven only.

The evidence

What the mechanics earned through history

Backtest over the 503-name S&P 500, 2021-09-22 → 2026-06-24, net of costs. Validates the price/volume/crowding mechanics; the earnings-revision signal can only be proven forward, which is what the live track record is for.

Total return?Cumulative return over the period, net of modelled trading costs.
+299.91%
CAGR?Compound annual growth rate — the smoothed yearly rate.
+34.02%
Sharpe?Return per unit of total volatility, annualized. Above 1 is good.
1.17
Max drawdown?Largest peak-to-trough drop — the worst loss you'd have ridden through.
-36.48%
Alpha vs SPY /yr?Annualized return NOT explained by market exposure — the skill component (beta-stripped).
+22.48%
Beta?Market sensitivity. 0.3 ≈ 30% as exposed as the market: a partial-exposure sleeve, not a full-market bet.
0.87
Excess vs SPY?Return above the S&P 500 over the same window.
+232.45%
Excess vs universe?Return above an equal-weight hold of the whole universe ('owning everything').
+228.80%
Equity curve ?Each line indexed to 100 at the start, so they're comparable regardless of capital.
Strategy SPY Universe
Stress window
2022 momentum unwind
Return?Cumulative return over the period, net of modelled trading costs.
-25.29%
vs SPY?Return above the S&P 500 over the same window.
-5.34%
Stress window
Aug-2024 vol spike
Return?Cumulative return over the period, net of modelled trading costs.
-9.48%
vs SPY?Return above the S&P 500 over the same window.
-9.86%
Stress window
2025 tariff shock
Return?Cumulative return over the period, net of modelled trading costs.
-1.49%
vs SPY?Return above the S&P 500 over the same window.
-2.45%