[kimchi]

I decided to think about my objectives first, since until I make some kind of inventory, I won’t really have any guidelines on what I want from this exercise. What is it I want to achieve? I think this is pretty much mostly a personal issue, but I’ll make a few generalisations about my own situation as it relates to the mechanics of using a trading system.

I’ll have available the equivalent of $25,000 for this particular system. I have stable money tied up elsewhere but while it isn’t money I can really afford to lose, I won’t top myself if I did. I think this is a reasonable amount so that it is meaningful and I’ll be able to practice decent position sizing using most of the instruments I intend to trade.

I have an income and don’t need profits from trading. If I take this system live, then I hope to have more than $22500 after 1 year in this account. I think it is reasonable to assume I might not make any money (at least in the first year) but my initial profit objectives are actually to limit my losses to less than an average 1% per month over the course of a year. People might flame me for this, but it is not easy losing this little while learning to actively trade. Unless you’ve never tried actively trading, or your name is Timothy Sykes, you’ll know what I mean.

Attainable objectives, baby!

I work during the day but have enough free time. I want to trade using EOD data, but may only be able to adjust (guaranteed) stops during trading hours. I currently live in Asia, so the easiest markets for me to trade would trade during European business hours (GMT 0 - +2) so I can enter orders before the open and adjust them before, or close to the close.

I have a little more time to devote to this system than others. One of my systems involves spending 5-10 minutes per day checking some prices. The medium term system takes a little longer, plus some time to prepare a trade if there’s one available or being managed. I expect to spend a few hours each night managing this system and record keeping depending upon how many markets I can trade, or how often signals are issued.

I need to learn more about statistics as related to trading so I can properly analyse results. (if anybody gas a recommended book/website then let me know).

I also need to learn to program some backtesting software. The entries, exits, and position sizing I use is simple yet still difficult to program (for me) into various backtesting software. I've previously done all testing in Excel and while it allows you to become more intimately aware of your systems behaviour, it takes a [censored] long time.

I’m not going into detail about my personal finances or experience except to say I’m not flush and have limited experience and reasonable success (ie-haven't busted yet!) trading. Follow me to stockmarket rags, SHOE.