In my "limited" experience, I found that the best way to retain my gains during the bull run is to sit out and wait for the market to correct and settle. The best way to loose my gains is to try to play the short side of the market, even if your predictions are "in sync" with market actions. Shorting is such a difficult game in that you have to have perfect timing for entry and exit in order to consistently be profitable. This has been proven to me, the hard way, across every major top in the past 3 years. I'm starting to get it but I found that being in cash might be one of the hardest thing to do as a trader. But that is often the best thing to do. As Billy pointed out through his decades of playing the market, the only thing that might be closed to being the "holy grail" in trading is patience. And to do that requires an uncommon discipline over your greed and fear emotions.