Turn of the Month & Pre-Holiday
NAS100, XAUUSD · D chart · strategy s11_turn_of_month · 5 variations
Buys gold or the Nasdaq around the end of the month or just before a holiday and sells a few days later, based on the calendar and not on chart patterns.
What it is about
Markets have long shown a tendency to rise in the last day of a month and the first few days of the next. A common explanation is money flow: salaries, pension and savings-plan contributions get invested at the start of the month, and funds rebalance around month-end. This is the 'turn of the month' effect.
A similar pattern appears on the day before a public holiday. Selling tends to be lighter, traders close bets against the market before a long weekend, and the mood is better. This is the 'pre-holiday' effect.
Both effects are well documented. Because they depend on the calendar and not on price patterns, their results are largely unrelated to the other strategies. That makes them useful for spreading risk, even though the gains are small.
How it trades
Turn of the month: about one trade a month, around the month-end. Each trade is held about 6 calendar days (8 for B). Pre-holiday: about 2 trades a month on average, bunched around holidays, held 1-2 days. Entries and exits happen at the 17:00 New York close.
- Slightly more than half the trades win (55-62%). Wins and losses are both small, typically well under 1R, because the stop is wide and the holding time short.
- Very few trades: about 9 a year for turn of the month and about 23 a year for pre-holiday.
- Losing streaks of up to 7 (A) and 4-5 for the others in the backtest.
- Small drops: the largest drop from a peak was 2.4R-4.2R.
- Small totals: backtest totals at zero cost of +10.0R to +28.2R over 2018/2019-today. Its value is in being different from the other strategies, not in size.
- Few trades means noisy results. A has only 75 trades in almost 9 years, too few to prove much statistically.
- Calendar effects are widely known and may weaken. The Nasdaq pre-holiday version made +14.7R in 2019-23 but only +3.7R in 2024-26.
- All three gold versions are slightly negative in 2026 so far (A −1.5R, B −1.2R, D −0.7R).
- Overnight financing (swap) is not included. The research charged about 4% a year on gold and 6% on the Nasdaq.
- The 200-day filter can switch the strategy off for long periods: the Nasdaq version (C) did not trade at all in 2022.
Where it comes from
Classic, widely published calendar effects. In the research (October 2026), buying was profitable in 91% (Nasdaq) and 79% (gold) of the settings tested on 2018/2019-2023, and selling in 0-7%. With the 200-day filter, every gold timing tested was profitable both then and in 2024-2026.
Main variation: s11-D ★ Main
The variations
Each variation is the same strategy with a different approach, trading its own paper account. Click one to see exactly what it changes.
Trades the pre-holiday effect instead of the month-end: buy the close before a US or UK holiday (or Good Friday), sell one trading day later. There is no trend filter, and the stop is 1 ATR instead of 2, because the trade lasts only a day.
s11-AGold, last day to 4th dayThe base rules on gold: buy the last trading day's close, sell the 4th trading day's close, only above the 200-day average.
s11-BGold, enter 3 days earlyBuys at the close of the third-to-last trading day instead of the last, so it also catches the run-up into month-end.
s11-CNasdaq, last day to 4th dayA's rules unchanged on the Nasdaq 100, where the turn-of-the-month effect is best known from stock markets.
s11-ENasdaq, day before a holidayD's pre-holiday rules unchanged on the Nasdaq 100.
Variations side by side
Live result of all 5 together: 0.0R (zero cost).
| Live paper account (R, zero cost) | Backtest 2018 – today (R, zero cost) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s11-D★ MainTurn of the month / pre-holiday | XAUUSD | D | – | 0 | – | – | +28.0R | +0.14R | 7/9 | 1.9 | 58% | −3.0R |
| s11-ATurn of the month / pre-holiday | XAUUSD | D | – | 0 | – | – | +14.9R | +0.20R | 6/9 | 0.7 | 55% | −2.8R |
| s11-BTurn of the month / pre-holiday | XAUUSD | D | – | 0 | – | – | +18.4R | +0.23R | 5/9 | 0.8 | 56% | −4.2R |
| s11-CTurn of the month / pre-holiday | NAS100 | D | – | 0 | – | 1 | +10.0R | +0.15R | 5/7 | 0.7 | 62% | −2.4R |
| s11-ETurn of the month / pre-holiday | NAS100 | D | – | 0 | – | – | +18.4R | +0.10R | 8/8 | 2 | 59% | −2.8R |
Main = the variation with the most backtest R per R of max drawdown (2018 – today, zero cost). It is picked on that history, so the live accounts are the real test.