My Trading Rule #12 : Substance Over Style

• Modification of conventional wisdom to "Run Your Profits". In T4L, don't always "Run Your Profits".
• In T4L, it is crucial to 1. to end with positive P&L each year  2.  do everything possible to avoid stress from fear of running out of money.
• Observation : Apart from start-up T4LY1, in each of the other 4 years I have always been able to get myself into a pretty good P&L position at some point during the year. And yet, T4LY4 ended a down year. During T4LY5, very briefly for about a week in Jun10, I was in good shape too but soon found myself staring at negative YTD by that month's end. I attribute these negative aspects of my trading to a stubborn adherence to long term trend following (giving back too much profits while waiting for system exit signal), and a complete lack of consideration given to absolute P&L relative to what I needed to achieve to live for the year. This is not right. [In short, no problem making money but big problem keeping it].
• Henceforth, T4L pragmatism takes precedence over trading philosophy/system. For eg 1. If at any time I find myself up large relative to my target for the year, lock it in even if the charts show that the long term trend is still in infancy  2. Close to year end, over-riding priority shall be to stay positive and protect rather than to try and make more. All this regardless of chart trend considerations. Money talks first. Style and elegance of system is secondary.