Max hold months is a time-based exit that closes a position once the number of months you set has passed since it was opened — counted in calendar months, and acted on only at the strategy's scheduled rebalances, never on the position's month anniversary. It caps how long any single position may stay, whether it is up or down.
Also seen as: Max hold, maximum holding period, hold cap.
How does Fincanva handle it?
- The control is labelled Max hold, with the helper "Sell a position after holding it this long". Off by default; when you switch it on, the value starts at the strategy's own rebalance interval, and you raise it from there.
- Entered in months (suffix "mo"), up to 120; the field will not take a value outside that range. The value must be a whole multiple of the rebalance interval — at a 3-month cadence anything else is blocked with "Must be a multiple of 3 months" — so changing the cadence can leave a value you already set invalid; the whole-multiples rule belongs to rebalance.
- In Screen, with a screener attached, it is always on and equal to the rebalance interval, so at every rebalance every position is sold and the screener picks again. The Asset selection card shows it as "Same as the rebalance" and does not let you change it; to set a different hold, use Compose.
- A position closed by this rule is recorded with the exit reason Max hold, one of the causes a backtest records.
- It is one of the per-position exits, alongside take profit and stop loss, and looks only at elapsed time. Those two run on the position's own price bars and can close it between rebalances; max hold cannot.
What does it look like in practice?
A strategy rebalances every month and has max hold set to 5 months. A position opened on the 12 January rebalance is 5 whole months old on 12 June, which is also a rebalance date, so it is closed there and its trade history shows the reason Max hold. Nothing happens at the February through May rebalances, and nothing happens between rebalances either.
The calendar-month count shows when rebalance dates do not fall on the same day each month. Suppose the position opened at a rebalance on 28 January and June's scheduled rebalance falls on 3 June. January to June is five calendar months, so the position closes on 3 June — a few days short of five full months. Had a risk condition forced an off-schedule rebalance on 28 June, it would not have closed the position there. Now raise the cadence to every 3 months: 5 is no longer a whole multiple of 3, so the app refuses it with "Must be a multiple of 3 months", and the nearest valid settings are 3 or 6 months.
Fincanva does not recommend a holding period, or whether to cap one at all.
When does max hold actually close a position?
Max hold closes a position at the first scheduled rebalance of the strategy at which the months you set have passed — never partway through a period, and never on a rebalance a risk condition forced off schedule. Two rules decide which rebalance that is:
- Months are calendar months. The count is the number of calendar months between the month the position was opened and the month of the rebalance; the day of the month plays no part. A position opened in January has been held five months at any rebalance in June, whether June's rebalance falls on the 3rd or the 28th.
- Only scheduled rebalances act on it. The check runs at the strategy's scheduled rebalance dates, and nowhere else.
The practical consequence is that max hold is not an exact stopwatch: the position leaves at the scheduled rebalance in the month its time runs out, which can be a few days before or after the same calendar day N months on. Because the exit lands on a scheduled rebalance date, the value has to line up with the rebalance clock — which is why it must be a whole multiple of the rebalance interval.