[I removed the first few sentences discussing the quantitative strategy signals.]

It’s possible that the US market will continue upwards tonight, with rumors of the ECB partial bailout of Italy, but rumors are just rumors, nothing I like to bet good money on.

What is worth my money is strongly backtested trading rules that can tell us:

1) what direction to bet,

2) how much to leverage up, and

3) when to bet

with risk/reward expectations clearly set out in advance so that we are psychologically ready to deal with it when it happens.

This kind of process-driven trading will discipline our trading in the long term (10 years, and hopefully more) and also improve our quality of life. What’s the point of daytrading and obsessing over news and rumors if you don’t have a competitive edge, or, even if you do ...