The guy who cracked the code, smoking it too?

Original post confidently states that $1k invested in 5 largest food stocks, buy after ex div, sell before earnings yields 29% annually.

A cool idea that prompted me to get set up with proper simulation capabilities. u/LocomotionLover let me know if you see any errors. This new post needed for table markdown.

My simulation (python and EODHD) shows that over the last 10 years or 4 years, returns are 6% per year with 58% time in the market, so effective rate 10%. Not as far off S&P500 than I expected, though a long way off the 29% promised.

There's much discussion about the sim benefiting from survivor bias by picking today's eventual winners. My guess was the bias boosts simulated returns, but others disagreed, so I checked it here https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/1fcwt9k/i_cracked_the_code_part_2/

Here's a 10 year simulation and extract of a ~4 year sim table in case anyone wants to check a few trades. It's difficult to go older than 10 years due to lack of data in the API I use.

Date $	NESN.SW	MDLZ	HSY	GIS	KHC	Subtotal	Cumulative gain
2020-03-17	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	5,000	0%
2020-03-18	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,103	1,000	5,103	2%
2020-04-23	1,000	1,000	855	1,103	1,000	4,958	-1%
2020-04-28	1,000	1,001	855	1,103	1,000	4,958	-1%
2020-04-30	1,000	1,001	855	1,103	1,512	5,470	9%
2020-07-01	1,000	1,001	855	1,196	1,512	5,563	11%
…
2024-05-01	1,000	1,426	1,438	1,132	1,751	6,746	35%
2024-05-03	1,000	1,426	1,489	1,132	1,751	6,797	36%
2024-06-26	1,000	1,426	1,489	1,035	1,751	6,700	34%
2024-07-30	1,000	1,461	1,489	1,035	1,751	6,735	35%
2024-07-31	1,000	1,461	1,489	1,035	1,783	6,767	35%
2024-08-01	1,000	1,461	1,427	1,035	1,783	6,706	34%
2024-09-06	933	1,461	1,474	1,239	1,804	6,911	38%

[edit] Loads of edits and additions from people's comments.