Haha, yes, it was a break through for me. To tell you the truth they are not applied fully to my swing trades in this journal for several reasons. The biggest problem here is that I am day trading without being at the computer (buying at open and putting in sell order about an hour into the day), so I have no way to manage the trade. My goal for this system is to take advantage of a perceived edge that I have found, I am betting on the belief that I have a statistical advantage to my entries and have found this to be so a large percentage of the time. Rule 2 doesn't exist in my methodology in this journal because of my profit target, if it is reached intraday then I am most likely out of the position, without the ability to day trade I have no ability to add to my winners. You'll see some aspects of rule 1 in my trading, I trade with no stops, rather I analyze the correctness of my position; the reason why I hang on to losses on occasion is because the market situation that I use for my entries seems to still be intact, the institutional buying that I look for can still very well come. Hope this answers some questions, in a few months I may have an extra 5k or so and may devote that to another journal where I plan to swing trade with longer holds (5-15 days) and follow the rules layed down by the phantom very strictly
Oh, just wanted to add that my automated bonds trading script that I currently run profitably is based from the ground up on his rules. If you wish, I'll share the basics of it at least, maybe this weekend if I have time.