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You are probably acquainted with the hedonic treadmill, or what I usually call hedonic acclimation. It asserts, quite correctly, that humans tend to become accustomed to whatever the circumstances in their life are and consider that to be “normal“, whether you’re imprisoned or living the vapid life of endless indulgence like Lauren Sanchez or Paris Hilton. Whatever you encounter day to day becomes the norm, and slight variances from that become good or bad……….but just for you.
For years now, I’ve done something which is a bit unusual, but I find oddly helpful, which is to track the positions I have closed out. In other words, when I close a position, I move it to a different part of my portfolio spreadsheet, updating its “entry” price with its “exit” price so that I can see what would have happened to that position if I had simply hung on to it.
By its nature, this is a constant source of either relief (“Phew, glad I got out!“) or regret (“Idiot! Coward! You should have hung on!“) I constantly have my eye on the rearview mirror.
The VIX has, in 50 hours, collapsed by nearly 70%. Organic, huh?
Given the extraordinary strength of the market this morning, I was bracing myself for catastrophe, led in particular by the news that Vistra (VST), on which I was long put options, was the most “up” stock in the entire market thanks to the regulators giving them a multi-decade blessing to run nuclear power plants.
