52 week high momentum

Checked October 2026

52-week-high momentum buys the stocks sitting closest to their high of the past year and shorts the ones sitting furthest from it. George and Hwang published it in the Journal of Finance in 2004. Backtoast ran it. The monthly-rebalanced version failed our test, losing 3.7% a year over 41,108 trades.

Backtoast

You pay $99 for two full tests of your own strategy, and a pass is an offer of 30% of the profit Backtoast makes trading it with its own money.

52 week high momentum

The rank is today's price divided by the highest close of the past year, so a stock at its high scores 1. The paper buys the top 30% and shorts the bottom 30%, and holds each monthly book for six months, so six books overlap.

This run rebuilt one book each month instead, 2,000 long and 2,000 short across every US stock and fund with no price floor, so it traded more often than the overlapping version.

Stock momentum ranks by the six-month return instead.

When it works

Like other momentum strategies, it earns while trends run for months and loses heavily in momentum crashes, when a sharp market rebound lifts the beaten-down stocks it's short. Traders use it because the 52-week high is on every quote screen, and George and Hwang found its gains didn't reverse in later years the way six-month momentum's did. Skipping January is the simplest change to try, since the paper's returns more than doubled without it.

Origins

George and Hwang reported 0.45% a month for the long-short book from 1963 to 2001, and 1.23% a month leaving out Januaries. The run is from late 2021 to October 2026.

The run is Backtoast's, from 29 October 2026, after costs.