Markets: The Stress Can Get to You

It's not the reality but your reaction to the reality that determines whether you go mad or develop an exquisite sense of comedic
(and hopefully, market) timing.
Or, on a deeper level, whether you live, or die.
The latter insight comes to us from Victor Frankl, the former from Long or Short Capital:
(and there's a juxtaposition I never imagined making)

How to End It

by Kaiser Edamame

So your fund is down double-digits, the first number is a 1 if you’re lucky, and you are one more -3% day away from getting a margin call from your friendly brokerage house which has it’s own balance sheet disaster because of its in-house, levered long ‘hedge’ fund. You’re starting to think it’s just not worth it anymore and that the easiest, quickest way out is just to end it. Put yourself out of this misery and give your wife/kids/fellow mini-ballers the insurance check they deserve. But you have to ask yourself: Do you really want to go out the easy, painless way? You’ve lived your whole life as a flashy, jet-set, new money rock star and you should go out with similar flair. Our top ideas for how to end it with a flourish that says “I was here and I got IT done”:

1. Tie a Bloomberg screen to your chest and fight a bull ’til the death. If the markets get worse it’ll see red and you’re toast; if we bounce then you’re saved and you could say you fought a bull with nothing but a Bloomberg terminal and won. HUZZAH! Plus there’s symbolism if you die by bull, I’m not sure what it symbolizes but it’s highly symbolic.
2. Chain yourself and a woodpecker to your desk. Train the woodpecker to peck the sh-t out of you every time he hears the words “we’re selling off” from your trader. This is advantageous because woodpeckers can’t be prosecuted for murder in most states (IANAL).
3. Put a gun in the ear piece of your phone. Then do an update call with a highly cyclical company that has consumer exposure and oil as a big cost (like I don’t know, an airline) and every time the retard IR guy tells you “we haven’t seen any weakening in demand yet” shoot yourself in the head. Extra points if you figure out how to get the gun connected to your wireless earpiece via Bluetooth....MORE