![Backtesting YouTube Finfluencer Stock Picks vs. S&P 500 (Risky Inverse strategy beat the market) [OC]](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vdjczxauqrdf1-1536x859.png "Backtesting YouTube Finfluencer Stock Picks vs. S&P 500 (Risky Inverse strategy beat the market) [OC]")
Portfolio value on a $100 investment: The Inverse YouTuber strategy outperforms QQQ and S&P 500, while all other strategies underperform.
Data Source: Hundreds of recommendation videos by YouTube financial influencers (2018–2024).
Tools Used: Matplotlib, manual annotation, backtesting scripts.
Original Source Article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5315526
Posted by mgalarny
7 Comments
Forgot to add the code in my post sorry! [https://github.com/gtfintechlab/VideoConviction/blob/master/back_testing/graphics.ipynb](https://github.com/gtfintechlab/VideoConviction/blob/master/back_testing/graphics.ipynb)
Like when YouTubers say buy you don’t buy and when they say don’t buy you buy?
So the port does well in a bear market. Not so well otherwise.
From the abstract:
> While high-conviction recommendations perform better than low-conviction ones, they still underperform the popular S&P 500 index fund. An inverse strategy-betting against finfluencer recommendations-outperforms the S&P 500 by 6.8% in annual returns but carries greater risk (Sharpe ratio of 0.41 vs. 0.65).
How do you go from $100 to -$120 back to positive cash with normal investments??
I love it: *pmud dna pmup* strategy
Could you try doing the same thing for crypto?