If You Want Loyalty Get A Dog

There is an old saying – every dead body on Everest was once a highly motivated individual who didn’t know how to quit.

Loyalty to a cause or purpose is one of those virtues that serves us well in almost every part of life — except trading. In markets, loyalty isn’t noble; it’s dangerous. The moment a trader becomes emotionally attached to a position, objectivity dissolves, and risk management goes out the window.

You see it most clearly in volatile instruments. They lure traders in with explosive potential, and then test their discipline with equally violent reversals. Those who “stay loyal” often do so not out of strategy, but out of hope. They’ve told themselves a story: “It will come back.” But hope isn’t a plan, and loyalty isn’t a risk control mechanism.

This misplaced loyalty usually stems from a handful of very human biases.

There’s the sunk cost fallacy — the feeling that because you’ve invested time, energy, or money into something, you must see it through. There’s ego, which whispers that the market must eventually prove you right. And there’s identity, the subtle shift from “this is a trade” to “this trade defines me.” Once that happens, selling becomes an act of self-betrayal rather than a rational decision.

The great irony is that loyalty feels like strength — but in trading, it’s actually fragility disguised as conviction. Professional traders aren’t loyal to positions; they’re loyal to process. Their allegiance is to rules, stops, and systems that protect them from themselves. They don’t confuse discipline with devotion.

The antidote is detachment — what Zen practitioners call mushin, the “mind without clinging.” When a trade is invalidated, you exit. When the signal disappears, you move on. You don’t plead with the market to be kind. You accept what is, not what you wish it to be.

Every losing trade whispers the same lesson: the market owes you nothing.
And that’s its greatest gift — a daily reminder that survival comes not from loyalty, but from letting go.