Incomestead · Charter
The Investment Charter
Six questions. What your money is for, what it must reach and by when, how much you will borrow, and who reads it if you can't — written down, banded, and dated. Most people who own a strategy have never written one.
01 · Purpose
What is this money for?
Not the return you want — the life it buys and the people it outlives you for. This is the page a successor reads first. Write it plainly; you can change it later, and the change is versioned.
02 · Objectives
What must it reach, and by when?
An objective is a destination — a target, a by-when, and a tolerance (how far short you can fall before it counts as a breach). Some objectives are standing: an ongoing discipline with no end date, so there is no by-date to set. We only offer objectives that can be computed from your own broker exports — anything we can't measure, we won't pretend to track. Objectives are destinations, never constraints — they never drive an action and never enter your Score. None is switched on to begin with: an objective you did not choose is not yours, and a charter with none is a valid charter.
Income run-rate
Annual realised income the book must throw off.
MEASURED FROM: realised income, trailing 52w, annualised. Booked on expiry, buyback, or assignment — never marked to market.
Concentration ceiling
No single position above this share of net asset value.
MEASURED FROM: largest position ÷ NAV, weekly. The most common single point of failure in a self-managed book.
Cadence
Weeks per year the book is actually reviewed. A standing discipline — it has no end date, so there is no by-date to set. Tolerance is how many weeks you may miss before it counts as a breach.
MEASURED FROM: weeks with a snapshot on record. Observed, not self-reported — the weeks you skip are the ones that count.
03 · Structure
Target weights, with bands
A target you never measure against is a wish, and a target with no band gives nothing to breach. Set a target for each Layer you use, then band them. Leave a Layer at zero if you don't hold it.
Set one number and we'll band them all — lower = target minus that share, upper = target plus it. Fine-tune any row below; a Layer left at zero stays unbanded.
This wizard will not let you leave with targets that don't sum to 100. Almost every planning document we've reviewed fails this — including one of our own policy files, until we restated it.
04 · Leverage
Your margin posture
If you borrow against the book, the zone you govern to matters more than the number itself. We don't tell you how much to borrow — that's your decision and nobody else's. We ask you to commit, in advance, to the zone you'll act at.
05 · Succession
Who reads this if you can't?
The framework this is built on promises that an executor or successor could understand what was done, why, and under which constraints. Constraints are mechanical. The why is this document, and it's the only part that can't be reconstructed from your data.
06 · Your charter
Signed, dated, versioned
This is the document.
charter.yaml the machine-readable twin — the same file the engine loads as its setpoint
Take your charter with you
Your charter is above and held in this tab, and gone when you close it. Take the two files: a dated, versioned PDF for your accountant, attorney, or family office, and the machine-readable charter.yaml. Free, yours to keep, no account. Nothing you entered ever leaves this device.
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