Would you trade a strategy you don't understand?

The second half of your instinct is the right one, in my view. Without a mechanism you can't distinguish a drawdown from a death, so you'll either quit too early or too late.

I've traded two I didn't understand. Both worked until they didn't, and I held both far too long precisely because I had no way to judge.

Counterpoint: plenty of people have a story and it's wrong, which is worse than having none, now you're confident.

Skeptic has a point, my worst blowup came with a beautiful story attached. Nowadays if I can't explain it I just size it like a lottery ticket instead of pretending it's a core position.

IndicatorSkeptic's version is interesting but how would we actually test it? Like is there a way to check whether your stated mechanism predicts anything, e.g. does the edge actually show up more in the conditions the story says it should? If it doesn't, you've learned the story is decoration.

- no story = no exit rule - so write down what would kill it before you size up - even a guess beats nothing

Fair — so the story isn't there to be true, it's there to give me a falsifiable line. Does anyone actually write that line down before going live, or is it always after the first bad month?