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The same Kelly calculation on the S&P 500 tracker, year by year, 2016 through 2025

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-07-31, from Kelly Criterion Position Sizing, Measured.

as of table 10×5read in context →
The same Kelly calculation on the S&P 500 tracker, year by year, 2016 through 2025 — 10 rows by 5 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
yearwin_rate_pctavg_gain_pctavg_loss_pctfull_kelly_x
201653.80.580.5813.7
201756.80.330.2781.8
201851.80.70.8-3.6
201959.90.560.5832.1
202057.51.251.494.5
202157.90.630.6324.8
202243.41.291.12-5.1
202356.80.650.6521.3
202457.50.590.5924.6
202557.80.690.7912.3
Rows × columns
10 × 5
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for The same Kelly calculation on the S&P 500 tracker, year by year, 2016 through 2025, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
year text 10 distinct values (2016, 2017, 2018…)
win_rate_pct number 43.4 to 59.9 percent
avg_gain_pct number 0.33 to 1.29 percent
avg_loss_pct number 0.27 to 1.49 percent
full_kelly_x number -5.1 to 81.8

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number
WITH daily AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS dt,
           argMax(toFloat64(close), window_start) AS c
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND window_start >= '2016-01-01 00:00:00'
      AND window_start <  '2026-01-01 00:00:00'
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY dt
),
steps AS (
    SELECT dt, c,
           lagInFrame(c) OVER (ORDER BY dt ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) AS prev
    FROM daily
),
rets AS (
    SELECT dt, c / prev - 1 AS ret
    FROM steps
    WHERE prev > 0 AND c != prev
)
SELECT toString(toYear(dt)) AS year,
       round(100 * countIf(ret > 0) / count(), 1) AS win_rate_pct,
       round(100 * avgIf(ret, ret > 0), 2) AS avg_gain_pct,
       round(100 * abs(avgIf(ret, ret < 0)), 2) AS avg_loss_pct,
       round(countIf(ret > 0) / count() / abs(avgIf(ret, ret < 0))
             - countIf(ret < 0) / count() / avgIf(ret, ret > 0), 1) AS full_kelly_x
FROM rets
GROUP BY year
HAVING countIf(ret > 0) > 0 AND countIf(ret < 0) > 0
ORDER BY year

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