Connor Bates, who manages $50 million at Revere Asset Management, says the thing that kills most traders isn't strategy. It's ego. "The main issue that people run into is their ego is so big that they can't comprehend them being wrong versus the market." A stock starts falling and instead of admitting they're wrong, they average down. "There's one thing that pays in the market and that's price. Price is ultimately what's right and what's wrong." Bates says it hits smart people hardest. "It falls into most people with higher IQs. They're right in a lot of things in other fields, but they can't fathom being wrong." Connor builds conviction before every trade, using his own criteria. But conviction never means marrying it. "I could have the most conviction in the world. But if the price starts going the opposite way, I've never had a problem cutting the loss." He points to the 2022 bottom, when the market gapped down on the hottest CPI print of the cycle and every strategist on TV said stocks couldn't go higher. "If we find a low and start to reverse green, that would be an expectation breaker." That call marked the exact bottom of the bear market. Most traders defend a thesis no matter what the chart says. Bates drops his the second price tells him he's wrong. So be honest with yourself: How much of your last losing trade was really the market, and how much was you refusing to admit you were wrong? Full Episode 👇