Using the KMI Framework

The KMI Framework exists for a single purpose: to help DIY investors avoid the structural mistakes that most people make when they manage their own money. These mistakes are predictable, repeatable, and avoidable. When they are removed, investors find it far easier to achieve the objectives they set for their capital.

The framework is not a course and not a sequence. It is a set of structures you can use to design a portfolio that fits your life and can be followed under pressure. You can read the articles in any order, but the process you build must follow a clear line.

That line begins with work that only you can do: defining your objectives, your risk, and the rules that govern when you buy and when you sell. This work is not technical. It is human. Without it, no strategy or tactic will hold under pressure.

Objectives come first

The starting point is always the same: define your objectives. Not financial targets, not risk levels, not return expectations. Human objectives. What you want the money to do. When objectives are expressed in human terms, the financial structure that supports them becomes clear. When they are expressed in financial terms, the structure becomes distorted.

How the process flows

Once the objectives are clear, the process moves in a straight line:

Objectives → Financial targets → Strategies → Tactics → Action.

This sequence is the backbone of a working process. It prevents you from reacting to markets and keeps the portfolio aligned with the life it is meant to support.

Strategies, tactics, and the rules that hold them together

Strategies are the broad, structural choices you make: how you allocate across assets, how you balance growth and stability, and how you match the portfolio to your time horizon. They are long‑term and rarely change.

Tactics are the rules that govern what you do in the short term: when you buy, when you sell, how you rebalance, and how you respond to volatility. Tactics must be simple, explicit, and written down. Under pressure, you will follow only the rules you have made clear in advance.

Red and yellow alerts are the early‑warning signals that tell you when the process is drifting. A yellow alert is a sign that something needs attention. A red alert is a sign that something must change. These alerts are not emotional reactions; they are structural markers that keep you honest.

The role of assumptions

Any process that involves cash flow—such as estimating a safe withdrawal rate—depends on assumptions. These assumptions must be made by you, not borrowed from a model or a commentator. They must be realistic, personal, and grounded in your own circumstances. Unrealistic assumptions distort the entire structure; realistic ones make it stable.

Reviewing and recording

Set review points. Monthly reviews keep the process alive; annual reviews test whether the structure still fits your objectives. These reviews are not performance assessments. They are structural checks. They tell you whether you are following your own process, and whether the process still fits your life.

Keep records. Good records are not administrative. They are diagnostic. They show you whether you are acting from structure or from emotion. They reveal patterns you cannot see in the moment. They are the only reliable way to understand your own behaviour as an investor.

Being both architect and operator

Finally, be prepared to fire yourself. If you do not follow your own process, or if the process no longer fits your life, you must change it. A DIY investor is both the architect and the operator. If the operator fails, the architect must intervene. This is not punitive. It is structural. A portfolio only works when the person running it is following a process that fits their objectives and can be executed under pressure.

This archive exists to give you the structures, the reasoning, and the tools to build your own process. The work at the front end is yours. The articles are the map. You can return to the index at any time and move through it in the order that fits the way you think.