BEAT THE COUCH · THE ARCHIVE
THIRTY WINDOWS · 120,800 GAMES ON THE LEDGER · REAL S&P 500 DAILY DATA
Thirty famous two-year windows from almost a century of the S&P 500. For each one: what a couch made by buying once and never selling, and how often real players beat it. Grouped by decade, and sorted inside each decade by how well humans did. The pattern is not subtle.
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Great Crash Sep 1929 to Sep 1931 | -53.5% | -58% | 72.9% | 16.7% |
| The Last Roar Feb 1928 to Feb 1930 | +42.7% | -44% | 53.8% | 15.6% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Relapse Mar 1937 to Mar 1939 | -23.2% | -52% | 57.0% | 14.1% |
| The Bottom Jul 1932 to Jul 1934 | +122.0% | -39% | 35.7% | 14.7% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Postwar Crash Jan 1946 to Jan 1948 | -4.0% | -26% | 51.3% | 16.6% |
| The War Bottom Apr 1942 to Mar 1944 | +66.1% | -12% | 5.2% | 3.8% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Boom Jan 1954 to Dec 1955 | +102.3% | -10% | 6.3% | 4.6% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Go-Go Years Jan 1965 to Dec 1966 | +1.2% | -20% | 47.5% | 6.8% |
| The Kennedy Slide Nov 1961 to Oct 1963 | +15.0% | -27% | 45.2% | 7.4% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Long Grind Jan 1973 to Jan 1975 | -34.9% | -44% | 62.4% | 7.5% |
| Stagflation Jan 1977 to Dec 1978 | -0.9% | -14% | 54.9% | 16.8% |
| The Nifty Fifty Jan 1971 to Dec 1972 | +35.6% | -12% | 40.5% | 17.2% |
| The 1974 Bottom Oct 1974 to Sep 1976 | +80.5% | -14% | 28.3% | 9.7% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Volcker Squeeze Jun 1980 to May 1982 | +11.3% | -18% | 68.9% | 16.9% |
| The Gulf War Oct 1989 to Sep 1991 | +18.3% | -19% | 54.4% | 16.1% |
| Black Monday Jan 1987 to Dec 1988 | +23.0% | -33% | 40.2% | 14.3% |
| The Liftoff Sep 1981 to Aug 1983 | +45.1% | -16% | 26.8% | 7.4% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Bubble Jan 1999 to Dec 2000 | +10.0% | -17% | 76.0% | 14.7% |
| The Bond Massacre Oct 1993 to Sep 1995 | +34.5% | -9% | 21.4% | 12.0% |
| The Ltcm Autumn Oct 1997 to Sep 1999 | +38.9% | -19% | 16.0% | 11.0% |
| The Worst Year To Be Clever Jan 1995 to Dec 1996 | +71.9% | -7% | 3.6% | 3.0% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Top Mar 2000 to Apr 2002 | -22.8% | -36% | 72.2% | 10.3% |
| The Crisis Oct 2007 to Oct 2009 | -28.3% | -55% | 53.9% | 7.1% |
| The 2009 Bottom Feb 2009 to Jan 2011 | +61.7% | -22% | 23.4% | 14.8% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Downgrade Nov 2010 to Oct 2012 | +24.5% | -19% | 30.0% | 15.3% |
| The Christmas Massacre Jun 2017 to Jun 2019 | +18.5% | -19% | 21.8% | 11.3% |
| The Melt-Up Jan 2012 to Jan 2014 | +51.8% | -10% | 5.1% | 4.2% |
| The window | Couch | Worst drop | Humans beat it | With skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mania Jan 2021 to Dec 2022 | +9.1% | -24% | 56.8% | 7.7% |
| The 2022 Bear Jan 2022 to Dec 2023 | -0.4% | -24% | 22.0% | 8.6% |
| The Covid Crash Feb 2020 to Jan 2022 | +34.4% | -33% | 21.8% | 9.4% |
Window figures come from the run export of October 31, 2026 and cover every game whose window started in that year. Across these thirty windows players beat the couch 39.2% of the time; these are the famous years, which is the point. Across the whole ledger the couch wins 62% of 120,800 games, with 12% of all games ending in a win that passes the skill audit.
In the 8 windows where the couch lost money, players beat it 56% of the time. In the 22 where it made money, 33%. The best human result in the archive is The Bubble, 1999, at 76%. The worst is The Worst Year To Be Clever, 1995, at 3.6%, a market where nothing went wrong at all.
Humans beat buy-and-hold when the market falls, and they get taken apart when it rises. That is not skill appearing and disappearing. That is the same behaviour, sitting in cash, being right by accident in one regime and expensive in the other.
The catch is the one thing no page can fix: from inside the window, 1995 and 1999 look identical. You find out which one you were in afterwards.
The same test runs every day. Each closed daily hand is filed in the daily archive: the secret window everyone got, what the couch made, and how many players beat it.
Take a window you have not seenfree, no signup. Two secret years, one button, and a couch.Better than at any other time, and less than you would think. In windows starting in 1929 players beat buy-and-hold 72.9% of the time, and in 2007 to 2008 only 53.9%, roughly a coin flip, in the most anticipated crash of the century. Only 7.1% of the 2007 to 2008 players passed the skill audit.
Jan 1995. Players beat the couch 3.6% of the time over the following two years. The Melt-Up, 2012 is second worst at 5.1%. Neither window contains a crash.
Yes, when it pays enough. From June 1980, while short-term rates sat near 20%, three-month T-bills returned +26.8% over two years against +11.3% for the couch, and players beat it 68.9% of the time.
The opponent in a free market timing game. It buys the index on day one, never sells, collects every dividend and makes no decisions. Across 120,800 games on the ledger it wins 62% of the time.
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Not financial advice. The couch is not licensed for anything.