I have found that the essentials are really valid and even more "essential" now, more than ever. The "essentials" rules of thumb are:
I don't know if any of the elements have any order of importance. By my own personal experience, I feel that all of them have equally weighted importance.The Essentials
Ride Your Winners
Cut Your Losses
Manage Your Risk
Use Stops
Stick to the System
File the News
Nevertheless if I were to change the order of them today, I would put them in this order:
Particularly, with regard to File the News I think it encompasses almost everything that is written about trading in the industry, including the opinions and analysis of the so called "experts" or "professionals", articles on specialized magazines, websites, etc. I have found over the long run that actually there are no "professionals" in trading. Being "too intelligent" and believing one has the "knowledge" or "edge" in trading is highly detrimental and risky.The Essentials
File the News
Manage Your Risk
Use Stops
Cut Your Losses
Ride Your Winners
So I would particularly revisit "File the News" to include all professional money managers and analysts, especially the so called fundamental analysts and technical likewise. Yes, this includes Winton, Eckhardt or any other "expert" one believes and relies on for some "precious" information.
This also include my former belief that fundamentals tend to dominate market forces on the long run. This is also a very detrimental belief or assumption. And actually very useless.