In this episode of Breaking News to Trading Moves, we debate one of the most repeated rules in trading: cut your losers quickly and let your winners run. On the surface, it sounds disciplined and simple. But once you look deeper into behavioural finance, value investing, stop losses, protective options and market structure, the answer becomes far more complicated.

The debate begins with the disposition effect, where traders and investors often hold losing positions too long while selling winning positions too early. One side argues this is a psychological flaw. Investors hate admitting they are wrong, so they avoid realising losses and turn bad trades into “long-term investments”. From this view, trailing stop losses are essential because they remove emotion.

The case for cutting losses

The pro-stop-loss argument i ...