Over the past 26 years the S&P has risen 8% per year and over the past 14 years it has risen 13% per year. The difference is due to the 12 years where the S&P was flat but had two 40% corrections. The past 26 years consists of about 75% up years and 25% down years.

For a buy and hold strategy the key is you need good long term holdings and you need to buy more on corrections.

The Stars model holds the cap weighted ETFs SPY and TQQQ. In a rising market the 40% TQQQ / 60% SPY version of Stars doubles the S&P performance. In a correction you need to take a 3 year average performance (down year plus two subsequent up years). Doing this you get an average return that is roughly equal the rising market return.

In the correction this version of Stars increases the percentage TQQQ to 60%. This results in TQQQ holding 6 times (for a 20% correction in the S&P) as many shares of TQQQ as at the previous high. These shares are bought at 20 cents on the dollar during annual rebalancing.

Stars typically makes a new portfolio high 2 years after the low.