This is not just another book with yet another trading system. This is a complete guide to developing your own systems to help you make and execute trading and investing decisions. It is intended for everyone who wishes to systematise their financial decision making, either completely or to some degree. Author Robert Carver draws on financial theory, his experience managing systematic hedge fund strategies and his own in-depth research to explain why systematic trading makes sense and demonstrates how it can be done safely and profitably. Every aspect, from creating trading rules to position sizing, is thoroughly explained. The framework described here can be used with all assets, including equities, bonds, forex and commodities. There is no magic formula that will guarantee success, but cutting out simple mistakes will improve your performance. You'll learn how to avoid common pitfalls such as over-complicating your strategy, being too optimistic about likely returns, taking excessive risks and trading too frequently. Important features include: - The theory behind systematic trading: why and when it works, and when it doesn't.- Simple and effective ways to design effective strategies. - A complete position management framework which can be adapted for your needs. - How fully systematic traders can create or adapt trading rules to forecast prices. - Making discretionary trading decisions within a systematic framework for position management. - Why traditional long only investors should use systems to ensure proper diversification, and avoid costly and unnecessary portfolio churn. - Adapting strategies depending on the cost of trading and how much capital is being used. - Practical examples from UK, US and international markets showing how the framework can be used. Systematic Trading is detailed, comprehensive and full of practical advice. It provides a unique new approach to system development and a must for anyone considering using systems to make some, or all, of their investment decisions.

Smart Portfolios is about building and maintaining smart investment portfolios. At its heart are the three key questions every investor needs to answer: 1. What to invest in. 2. How much to invest. 3. When to make changes to a portfolio. Author Robert Carver addresses these three areas by providing a single integrated approach to portfolio management. He shows how to follow a step-by-step process to build a multi-asset investment portfolio, and how to rebalance the portfolio efficiently. He covers both investment in collective funds like ETFs, and also direct investment in individual equities. Important features include: -- Why forecasting future returns is so difficult, and how to account for uncertainty when making investment decisions. -- How to accurately calculate the true costs of an investment, including costs that you may not even be aware of. -- How to select the best ETF for each asset class. -- How to compare the costs and other features of different ETFs. -- How to select individual shares. -- Calculating the number of shares needed for adequate diversification. -- How to use systematic forecasting algorithms to adjust portfolio allocations. -- How to cut trading costs through smart rebalancing strategies and execution tactics. Robert Carver also explains how to blend assets with different levels of risk, and how to construct portfolios that suit the level of risk that the investor can cope with. Smart Portfolios is detailed, comprehensive, and full of practical methods, rules of thumb and techniques, all fully explained with examples. It is intended for professional investors worldwide, including financial advisors, private bankers, wealth managers and institutional funds; as well as experienced private investors.

In Advanced Futures Trading Strategies, Robert Carver provides a complete practical guide to 30 trading strategies for the futures markets. The strategies cover more than 100 tradable instruments and draw on over 50 years of historic data, and are suitable for both discretionary and systematic traders. The strategies begin with the most basic, and progress to more advanced strategies, including trading calendar spreads, breakouts, trend following, fast mean reversion, and many more. For each strategy, Robert describes: How and why it works. Detailed rules for putting the strategy into practice. Past performance from historical data. Historic strategy behaviour and risk. And throughout the book, building up step by step, Robert explains other essential aspects of effective futures trading, including: How to properly calculate profits and assess performance. How to measure and forecast risk. How to calculate trading costs. The trading capital you need for specific futures instruments. How to decide which instrument to trade. Diversifying by using multiple strategies together. And much, much more. Advanced Futures Trading Strategies is the definitive practical guide to futures trading strategies. No one who intends to seriously trade futures can afford to be without it.

With the right broker, and just a few hundred dollars or pounds, anyone can become a leveraged trader. The products and tools needed are accessible to all: FX, a margin account, CFDs, spread-bets and futures. But this level playing field comes with great risks. Trading with leverage is inherently dangerous. With leverage, losses and costs - the two great killers for traders - are magnified. This does not mean leverage must be avoided altogether, but it does mean that it needs to be used safely. In Leveraged Trading, Robert Carver shows you how to do exactly that, by using a trading system. A trading system can be employed to tackle those twin dangers of serious losses and high costs. The trading systems introduced in this book are simple and carefully designed to use the correct amount of leverage and trade at a suitable frequency. Rob shows how to trade a simple Starter System on its own, on a single instrument and with a single rule for opening positions. He then moves on to show how the Starter System can be adapted, as you gain experience and confidence. The system can be diversified into multiple instruments and new trading rules can be added. For those who wish to go further still, advice on making more complex improvements is included: how to develop your own trading systems, and how to combine a system with your own human judgement, an approach Robert has nicknamed Semi-Automatic Trading. For those trading with leverage, looking for a way to take a controlled approach and manage risk, a properly designed trading system is the answer. Pick up Leveraged Trading and learn how.

Robert Carver, journalist and author of the acclaimed 'Among the Mountains', searches for high adventure and intense experiences as he follows the trail of a family mystery . Once upon a time when Buenos Aires was still a tiny village, there existed an almost magical sub-tropical paradise in the lost heart of South America - Old Paraguay. In 1537 a group of Europeans founded Asuncion on the banks of the Parana river, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by the Gurani. An extraordinary fusion of New World and Old was created - a place where magnificent baroque cathedrals were built of carved stone in the heart of the jungle and solemn Catholic masses and high oratorios were sung and performed on European instruments by Gurani Indians and their Jesuit mentors. But every paradise has its serpents and the history of Paraguay is also studded with oppressive and even demented dictators. Robert Carver's long-term fascination with this intoxicating world was fuelled by childhood stories of his great-uncle Charlie Carver, who vanished into the Amazonian jungle of old north Paraguay in search of Inca silver. He never returned, but his smashed gold pocket watch was traded down river and returned to the family in England. Today Paraguay is the only South American country which is truly bilingual, in Spanish and Gurani: here everyone is a mestizo and proud of their dual heritage. Pink, freshwater dolphins play in the rivers of the Huan Chaco while in the forests soldier-ants cut paths six feet wide and eat anything in their way - they can devour a nylon tent in an hour. Carver (a fluent Spanish-speaker) travels into this forbidden lost world in search of his own golden city of outlandish experience. The physically reckless journey takes him from mule trains high in frozen mountains to steamers up remote rivers in dense tropical jungle and he faces the threat of malaria, dengue fever and the odd marauding outlaw.