Getting paid in a bull market.
How the Market Wave Algorithm for Equities beat buy and hold and monthly dollar-cost averaging on GOOGL across three windows.
The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities, built on the rules-based discipline our crypto clients run every day, pointed at a single stock: Alphabet (GOOGL), the company behind Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, and Gemini.
A winner almost everyone owns, and almost nobody manages
We have already shown what Market Wave does on stocks that frustrate investors: Tesla, stuck for years in a jagged range. MSTR, violently volatile. Nvidia, the strongest uptrend almost nobody felt they could buy. Alphabet is a different test. It is one of the most widely held companies on earth, and across our window it delivered one of the strongest runs in big tech.
The problem it poses is the quietest and most expensive of all: what do you actually do with a winner while it is winning?
The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities: a distinct algorithm built on the rules-based discipline our crypto clients trust, pointed at GOOGL. We ran it three ways, all ending July 8, 2026.
Cash yield at all-time highs
Strategy+32.7%
- Buy and hold
- +14.5%
- DCA
- +7.9%
Cash yield through the bull run
Strategy+116.4%
- Buy and hold
- +95.0%
- DCA
- +66.4%
Same window, the accumulation recipe
Strategy+120.7%
- Buy and hold
- +90.5%
- DCA
- +66.2%
All three runs start from the same hypothetical $100,000 in cash and zero shares. The weekly and daily runs cover the identical two-year window on two chart intervals.
Backtested performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
The winner everyone owns and nobody manages
Alphabet is the holding company behind Google Search, YouTube, Android, Cloud, Waymo, and the Gemini models. When people say they are in the market, they very often mean, in part, that they own Alphabet. Split-adjusted, the price tells a story of a powerful but repeatedly tested uptrend.
- Mid 2022Post 20-for-1 split price: ~$108
- Late 2022Bear-market low as rates rose: ~$83
- 2024AI build-out recovery, full-year return: +36%
- Aug 2024Federal ruling: illegal search monopoly. Shock
- Sep 2025Remedies decision, no breakup, +8% in a day
- May 18, 2026All-time-high close: $408.61
- Jul 2026Pullback, about 12% off the record: ~$360
Two-year window (weekly, daily)
~$185 to ~$360
Six-month window (1-hour)
~$314 to $408.61 to ~$360
Here is the catch: Alphabet did not go straight up. A monopoly ruling, an AI scare, a tariff shock, and a roughly 12% drop from its own May 2026 record, all inside a two-year window in which it still nearly doubled. Owning the winner was easy. Deciding when to buy more, when to take some off, and when to sit still was the hard part.
A winner is only worth what you take off the table
A losing stock is easy: cut it or do not. A winner is harder, because doing nothing feels exactly like winning, right up until it does not. Alphabet spent two years rewarding the people who held it, which is precisely why so few of them ever banked a dollar of the reward.
The paper-gain trap
Every dollar is unrealized until you sell, and stays exposed to the next drawdown. When Alphabet fell about 12% from its record into July, holders gave back a slice of a gain they had never actually collected. Real on the screen. Never real in the account.
The "it is too high" freeze
Every new record made the next share look expensive, so the disciplined waited and the impulsive cracked and chased the top. Both are the same error: letting the price you remember, or the price you fear missing, make the decision instead of a rule.
Never taking a profit
Buy-and-never-sell is sound for a broad index fund held for thirty years. On a single stock in a fast uptrend, it hardens into a refusal to ever ring the register, so a two-year double becomes a paper double the next correction can quietly tax back.
Monthly dollar-cost averaging cures the first two, and it beat doing nothing in all three windows. But it buys the same dollar amount at $185 and at $400, paying ever-higher prices for an ever-smaller slice, and like buy and hold it never sells. It cures the panic by agreeing never to look.
The opening a rules-based algorithm is built for: keep the freedom from emotion, add back awareness of price, and treat taking profit as normal.
What Market Wave actually does
Arch Public's trend and momentum capture algorithm for equities, built on the rules-based discipline proven across crypto for our clients. It does three things with rules instead of emotions.
Ride confirmed moves
It enters on rule-based confirmation of a trend, not on a hunch, a headline, or a feeling that a price is too high or too low.
Exit on rules, not nerves
It takes profits into strength on defined triggers, banking gains into cash rather than holding every share on principle.
Step aside cleanly
In chop and indecision it is willing to hold cash and wait, which is exactly when human investors tend to overtrade.
One algorithm, two jobs. On a slower chart it leans toward accumulation, building a low-cost-basis position for the long trend. On a faster chart it leans toward cash yield, working the swings and banking realized profit again and again. The only variables that follow are the time window and the chart interval.
Backtested results. Trading stocks involves significant risk, including possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
“Cash yield at all-time highs”
January 1 to July 8, 2026 · 1-hour chart
The 1-hour chart, January to July 2026
The stock opens near $314, already an expensive-looking winner, runs through its $408.61 record, then absorbs the roughly 12% pullback. At all-time highs the algorithm did not freeze and did not chase. It worked the swings and got paid.
+32.7%
- Buy and hold +14.5%, outperformance +18.2 percentage points
- DCA +7.9%, outperformance +24.8 percentage points
- Strategy ending value
- $132,690
- Total profit and loss
- +$32,690
- Realized, 77% banked as cash
- $25,242
- Open
- $7,448
- Shares at end
- 368 at $340 avg cost
- Cash on hand
- $162
Backtested from a 1-hour-chart trade schedule, valued July 8, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
“Cash yield through the bull run”
July 8, 2024 to July 8, 2026 · Weekly chart
The weekly chart, July 2024 to July 2026
Across two years in which Alphabet nearly doubled off a July 2024 level near $185, the algorithm worked the weekly swings and beat a strong 95% buy and hold, and it did so while finishing the period mostly in cash. This is what a cash yield recipe looks like.
+116.4%
- Buy and hold +95.0%, outperformance +21.4 percentage points
- DCA +66.4%, outperformance +50.0 percentage points
- Strategy ending value
- $216,407
- Total profit and loss
- +$116,407
- Realized, 75% banked
- $87,779
- Open
- $28,629
- Shares at end
- 223 at $233 avg cost
- Cash on hand, ended 60%+ in cash
- $135,913
Backtested from a weekly-chart trade schedule, valued July 8, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
“Same window, the accumulation recipe”
July 8, 2024 to July 8, 2026 · Daily chart
The daily chart, July 2024 to July 2026
Same stock, same two years, same $100,000. Only the interval changed. On the daily chart the algorithm did the opposite of the weekly run: it accumulated aggressively on confirmed dips and let most of the gain run as a held position.
+120.7%
- Buy and hold +90.5%, outperformance +30.2 percentage points
- DCA +66.2%, outperformance +54.5 percentage points
- Strategy ending value
- $220,672
- Total profit and loss
- +$120,672
- Realized
- $35,674
- Open position, 70% left running
- $84,998
- Shares at end
- 531 at $200 avg cost
- Cash on hand
- $29,478
Backtested from a daily-chart trade schedule, valued July 8, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
Three windows, one algorithm, both benchmarks
| Metric | 1-hour, Jan to Jul 2026 | Weekly, Jul 2024 to Jul 2026 | Daily, Jul 2024 to Jul 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting capital | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 |
| Strategy ending value | $132,690 | $216,407 | $220,672 |
| Strategy ROI | +32.7% | +116.4% | +120.7% |
| Buy and hold ROI | +14.5% | +95.0% | +90.5% |
| Monthly DCA ROI | +7.9% | +66.4% | +66.2% |
| Outperformance vs buy and hold | +18.2 pts | +21.4 pts | +30.2 pts |
| Outperformance vs DCA | +24.8 pts | +50.0 pts | +54.5 pts |
| Realized profit, banked | $25,242 | $87,779 | $35,674 |
| Unrealized profit, open | $7,448 | $28,629 | $84,998 |
| Shares held at end | 368 | 223 | 531 |
| Average cost basis | $340 | $233 | $200 |
| Cash on hand at end | $162 | $135,913 | $29,478 |
Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
Cash yield versus accumulation, same two years
Same stock, same two years, same $100,000. The only difference is each run's recipe: the weekly run to harvest cash, the daily run to accumulate shares.
Weekly: cash yield, July 2024 to July 2026
The goal was cash yield, so it worked the larger swings and banked most of its gain, finishing the two years more than 60% in cash. Realized $87,779; 223 shares held; $135,913 ended in cash.
Daily: accumulation, July 2024 to July 2026, identical window
The goal leaned to accumulation, so it bought confirmed dips harder, built a low-cost position, and let most of the gain run unrealized. Unrealized $84,998; 531 shares held; $200 avg cost basis.
The edge is not prediction. It is the ability to take a single, emotion-free posture toward a winner: ride it when riding is right, harvest it when harvesting is right, accumulate it when accumulating is right, and never let the feeling that a price is "too high," or the refusal to ever sell, make the decision.
Buy and hold owns one decision, hold, and left return on the table in all three windows. DCA fared worse, paying ever-higher prices for an ever-smaller slice.
Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.
Getting paid in a bull market
- 01
The hardest discipline is taking the profit
A paper gain is not money until you take some of it, and both buy and hold and DCA are built to never take any. Across a record-setting six-month window and a two-year double, the passive approaches realized a combined $0. The Market Wave runs banked cash in every single window.
- 02
One algorithm, many jobs
The same logic produced a cash-yield result that finished more than 60% in cash on the weekly chart, and an accumulation result that built a 531-share position at a $200 cost basis on the daily chart, over the exact same two years on the exact same stock. A single human posture cannot easily replicate that.
- 03
Discipline and awareness are not opposites
DCA removes emotion by removing sight, and it beat doing nothing in all three windows, so it deserves respect. But the same rules that remove emotion can also watch price structure, take profits into strength, buy confirmed dips, and step aside in chop. That combination beat both benchmarks in every window we tested.
Alphabet will keep doing what great compounding businesses do: climb, scare its holders, correct, and climb again. You do not have to predict any of it. You have to be systematically present for it, and systematically willing to get paid.
For educational purposes only. Trading stocks involves significant risk.
The winner you actually manage
Arch Public's equities strategies are live, bringing the rules-based discipline our crypto clients trust to individual stocks including Alphabet, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Amazon, and more. The platform is the same, but the algorithms are purpose-built for equities.
Zero custody. Your assets never leave your account.
Full control. Pause, adjust, or stop any strategy at any time.
Rules, not reactions. The algorithm executes the plan, so neither the fear that a price is too high nor the refusal to take a profit makes the call.
How much of your winner is invested with its eyes closed, and how much of what it earns will you ever actually collect?
Read the realized-versus-unrealized band slowly. The weekly run banked $87,779 as cash and finished mostly in cash. The daily run, on the identical window, built a 531-share position at a $200 average cost and let $84,998 run unrealized. Neither is more real than the other. They are two deliberate answers to two client questions, and both beat the passive benchmarks.