Holds the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Prices as of 2026-10-23. Source: Data via FinanceDataReader · Policy rate via FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
DIA is State Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF, launched in January 1998. It holds thirty large US companies weighted by share price rather than market value, and pays dividends monthly.
With only thirty members and price weighting, results at a few high-priced companies move the whole index. Technology weighs less than in the S&P 500, so DIA fell far less than the Nasdaq in the dot-com bust, but it still lost more than 50% from its high in the 2008 crisis. It is the index UDOW tracks at 3x, which makes it the baseline for judging that fund.
Split buying on DIA, as on SPY and VOO, usually gives a small drawdown and a return below buy and hold. Changing the number of tranches and their weights on a 1x fund shows how much settings alone change results without leverage. See tranche weights and how many tranches.
Using real closing prices only (adjusted for splits and dividends) from 1998-01-20, DIA's worst peak-to-trough fall was -53.8%, from the 2007-10-09 high to the 2009-03-09 low over 355 trading days. It took another 1004 trading days (about 4.0 years) to get back above that high, on 2013-03-05. The last close is 4.0% below the all-time high.
A fall of 53.8% needs a 116% gain to get back to even. Any strategy on DIA has to be judged on whether you could have held it through a stretch like this. Why drawdown comes before return.
The standard deviation of daily returns is 1.17% over the whole history
and 0.79% over the last year. By the rough rule
days ≈ (target ÷ daily volatility)², a 1.5% take-profit target needs about
3.6 trading days at the recent pace.
Where the rule comes from.
Three preset strategies run over 2016-01-04 to 2026-10-23 with a $10,000 seed and 0.1% fees, alongside simply holding the same instrument.
| Strategy | Return | Max drawdown | CAGR | Trades | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A2 Standard, base rules (no defence signal) | +50.68% | -17.50% | +3.88% | 1187 | 43.6% |
| A1 Defensive, base rules | +12.13% | -14.22% | +1.07% | 1203 | 83.1% |
| A3 Aggressive, base rules (no defence signal) | +50.28% | -23.58% | +3.85% | 1026 | 39.5% |
| Buy and hold | +203.52% | -37.03% | +10.85% | - | - |
Read the drawdown column before the return column. Split buying leaves much of the seed in cash, which is the main reason its drawdown is smaller — treat it as lower exposure rather than protection.
Test DIA with your own settings →The standard (diamond) preset, one calendar year at a time. A strategy worth using should have good years and bad years mixed — if one year made everything, that was the year, not the rules.
| Year | Strategy | Strategy MDD | Buy and hold | B&H MDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | +0.53% | -6.42% | +7.53% | -9.99% |
| 2025 | +8.18% | -12.40% | +13.13% | -16.07% |
| 2024 | +2.81% | -5.72% | +12.50% | -6.05% |
| 2023 | +3.93% | -6.81% | +13.48% | -8.94% |
| 2022 | -2.53% | -11.59% | -9.46% | -21.65% |
| 2021 | +6.84% | -4.02% | +19.91% | -6.54% |
| 2020 | +6.46% | -14.98% | +5.72% | -36.94% |
| 2019 | +2.47% | -6.36% | +21.77% | -6.81% |
| 2018 | -6.46% | -12.90% | -6.12% | -18.48% |
| 2017 | +9.46% | -3.11% | +24.26% | -3.38% |
Across these 10 years the strategy beat buy and hold in 2 and trailed it in 8. It lost money in 2 years; buy and hold lost in 2. In DIA's worst year here, 2022, holding returned -9.5% while the strategy returned -2.5%. In its best year, 2017, holding returned +24.3% and the strategy +9.5%. Giving up much of the best years is the price of the smaller drawdowns.
DIA listed on 1998-01-20, and every number on this page uses real prices only. In the backtest tool you can go back to 1993, but the years before listing are index-based: DIA listed on 1998-01-20. Prices from 1993-01-01 to the day before listing are converted from the 1x index, not real trades: the daily return of Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) minus the fund fee. Treat that range as an estimate. See how the index-based history is built and checked.
Whole shares only. If a tranche is allocated less than one share's price, it buys nothing. Raise the seed or lower the number of tranches.
The Today's Orders page computes the next session's buy limit and each tranche's sell target from your start date. It is a calculation, not advice, and no orders are placed.