Have a plan

As an individual investor managing my own money, I am convinced that it is necessary to create your own portfolio framework that you can consistently follow and that is written down in an individually tailored investment plan to be a successful investor over the long term.

To me trading and investing can enable independence and freedom, but that is hard to actually achieve. On my path to becoming consistently profitable I encountered numerous setbacks that I had to overcome. 
I still face frequent headwinds, as does everyone in this business. The key to success has been to stay realistic and disciplined and that is what I want to share with you here.

No magic bullet, just diligent and thorough work will give anyone a real chance at staying on top of this game. 

Basic investment philosophy

Investing successfully is no easy task. We need to be aware that we are acting in an extremely competitive environment with many highly sophisticated participants – few of which manage to outperform the market.
Anyone who says otherwise is foolish or – worse – untruthful.

My focus is on systematic, evidence-based investing paired with common sense to filter out the noise and figure out what really works. I use openly available tools, resources and research to invest and trade systematically.
Active investing can add value as I am convinced that there are inefficiencies in financial markets that we can find and exploit by analyzing the available data.

My goal is to create and evolve an adaptive, diversified portfolio of asset classes, return factors and trading strategies that yields high risk-adjusted returns in different market environments.

Two series of articles detail my basic investment philosophy:

The Investment Blueprint
When I began to professionalize my investment approach, I put together a rulebook for systematic trading and investing to serve as a guideline to create and evolve a personal investment plan to manage my own money.

Register or subscribe to download an updated 2020 edition of “The Investment Blueprint” as a free eBook.

The Meta Strategy
In the beginning of 2019, I distilled the evolution of my portfolio’s success into a clear system for efficiently allocating money to different assets and strategies, with the aim to generate exceptional returns at opportune times and to protect capital in difficult environments. I use fundamental and technical signals to implement an active portfolio adaption to different market environments. A detailed description is also available as a free eBook.

Meta Strategy Newsletters

For anyone who wants to implement this in a very simple, low maintenance ETF portfolio, but doesn’t want to do all the time consuming background work, I have started a newsletter “The Meta Strategy ETF Portfolios”. It is sent out monthly and contains all the information to follow a long-only portfolio as well as a leveraged long/short portfolio for more aggressive investors. Both portfolios follow the long-term moves of the market with very little turnover.

The idea to combine long term investing and active trading is at the core of the weekly newsletter “The Meta Strategy Trading Portfolio”. An up-to-date Probability Map shows likely future stock returns over different time horizons. Portfolio exposure to the market is adjusted actively over a 1 – 8 week time frame.

If you are interested in receiving my letters please learn more and subscribe here.

I wish you all the best in your investing endeavors.

David Steets

DISCLAIMER

This blog is a description of my own investment approach and ideas. I may personally hold positions mentioned in articles and reports. The content of this letter is for entertainment purposes only and not meant to be investment advice to others.

I am not an investment advisor and I do not provide individual investment advice. None of the ideas in this letter are meant to be construed as professional financial advice.

Your investment decisions are solely your own responsibility and I am not legally or financially responsible for any losses you may incur from reading or using the content on this letter.

© 2020 David Steets, all rights reserved
All photographs: copyright henglein & steets | fotografie