Why this chapter exists
The compounding I want is not only the number in the account. It is also the time left for living.
After passing the CFA in 2025, I began writing judgement down as rules.
Trading
See the forces. Follow your rules.
Research comes from people with something to sell you. Discipline comes from how you feel that night.
The view starts from every asset class and narrows, layer by layer, to one name, with the reason written at each layer.
New York opens over dinner. Hong Kong opens while you sleep. The phone lights up and your finger itches.
The gate opens at the level you set. Until then it says no for you, and you finish dinner.
This way of seeing used to be what private banks gave their biggest clients. This discipline used to belong to a fund’s systems.
Now it can be a desk of your own.
Two questions, two different things.
You can take only the part you need.
What is the market rewarding, and what would change my view?
Imagine someone actually on your side, watching where smart money goes. The view starts from the macro, sweeps across asset classes and ends with reasons, not a story that leaves you buying the top.
When the condition arrives, will I do what I said I’d do?
Imagine not having to watch the screen, and not missing it the moment you look away. Imagine a system of your own, a line that runs alongside your job. Whether it makes money depends on markets, costs and rules, and this page doesn’t promise it.
From the whole chart to one card
From the outer ring to the centre. Every layer has to say why.
- Every asset classEquities, bonds, gold, commodities, FX, crypto, alternatives. Right now, who are rates, policy and liquidity rewarding? Where smart money is going counts only as supporting evidence.
- MarketsThe same asset class across different markets: pricing, history, long cycles. Where is it still cheap, and where is it ahead of itself?
- SectorsIn the chosen market, where is the water being channelled? Real demand, or a story everyone is telling?
- One nameOnly now a name: where the price is wrong, what brings it back, and when I’d be proven wrong.
Suppose the search ends at a US-listed data-centre company with scarce grid access. Turn on the evidence and watch the view move.
Worth a closer look
The scarcity is real. Look at what it is, then what it’s worth, and only then at how far it’s risen.
Not investment advice
A lock gate has no mood
A trade that was refused.
The gate opens at the level you decided in advance, and not one moment before. Walk through this one decision record, from waiting to expiry.
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First look
Waiting No.
The story in the group chat has no traceable source, and a screenshot doesn’t count.
It needs an announcement you can read in the original, then a fresh leg after it and its first pullback.
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It runs higher
Waiting Still no.
The conditions haven’t changed. A higher price isn’t new evidence.
It still needs an announcement you can read in the original, then a fresh leg after it and its first pullback.
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The announcement arrives
Waiting Now there’s a source.
Note the original and its time. The earlier “no” stands, and the run before it doesn’t count. Wait for a new one.
Waiting for a fresh leg after the announcement.
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New leg, first pullback
Condition met A level can be written down. Still no action.
Write three things: where to act, where it’s proven wrong, how long the level holds.
If price never touches the level, nothing happens.
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Time runs out
Expired Expired.
Price never touched the level.
The level lapses. No chasing.
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The day ends
Stopped No trade today.
The entry window has passed. The chart kept rising and this leg wasn’t caught.
Look again tomorrow.
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Tomorrow
Start over From the top.
Is the announcement still new? Is there a fresh leg?
Today’s level doesn’t carry overnight.
Does not represent real trades, accounts or returns
Three sets of rules
Turning the trained eye into something code can carry out exactly.
They aren’t ranked; they’re waiting for different things.
Index snapback
What it waits forThe kind of day that closes hammered at its low
When it says noPast a level of panic, no new positions; if it hasn’t come back in days, admit it and leave
Index ETFs, no leverage
Channel structure
What it waits forThe larger structure, plus a trigger from a candle that has closed
When it says noAn unclosed candle doesn’t count; “buy the dip” written on a chart isn’t an instruction
Validated version by version
Momentum watch
What it waits forWhatever holds the most attention right now, on its first pullback
When it says noToo extended, no chase; no clear catalyst, no touch
Research baseline is US common stock
Take one with you
Write your own four rules.
No account and no broker. Just saying it clearly before the next time your finger itches.
Reason & Rule
This desk has a name of its own.
Reason & Rule is where this chapter becomes products: investment research and trading tools on one desk. The first thing it says is no.
Put your limit on paper
Enter what you’re prepared to lose on this trade. If the arithmetic goes over, it says no. It never says yes for you.
Write to me about accessTrading discipline
See how a rule observes, waits and refuses, then choose how deep to go.
Tell me what you’d use mostInvestment research
Prices change every day, and a reason deserves a second look. The method and a sample issue are there.
Tell me what you’d read first
Write and tell me which you’d use first. When its public doors open, I’ll let you know.
Take only what you need
They aren’t rungs on a ladder.
Each is its own thing. Look only at what you’d use. Ask me what you can try today
Research
A research publication: where capital is moving and why. It may defer, shrink or give a framework without a name.
Indicators
The conditions under which a rule holds or doesn’t, and where it fails.
Signals
A prompt issued by the rules, with its reason and its invalidation.
Community
Shared trade records and case discussion.
The full system
Runs in your own account under frozen strategy and risk limits. It’s the running that’s hosted, not your assets.
Use mine
Whose strategyThe settled versions of these three sets of rules
What you can changeConfigure within the set limits
Whose resultYour account, your decision
Build your own
Whose strategyYour strategy, your requirements
What you can changeThe decision chain and execution are built around you
Whose resultThe system is yours. This is a CanTrust product.
Want to tell me which one you’d use? Drop me a note, and I’ll know what to build first. Write a note