The first thing I do when I wake up every morning is to open the stock app and check my watchlist. It’s a habit I developed and reinforced over the past few years. Admittedly, it’s very time and energy consuming. Many times, I’m not trying to actively trade, it’s almost like an addiction that I have to watch the ticker price multiple times every day.
When it comes to personal finance and investing, I believe I’m a know how. Over the years,I read books (like The Philosopy of Money kind), forums (bogleheads etc), and all these resources tell you the same things, diversify, low-cost ETFs, maintain and balance your allocation, use tax-advantaged accounts. Over the years, I also watched myself made painful mistakes when I tried to out-play the market. If I think completely rational, I should just set my allocation and check my portfolio once or twice per year for rebalance and that should be it. So where comes the impulse of constantly checking the accounts?
I do not remember clearly how it started, perhaps there is no clean start points, but things happened along the way and accumlated to the current state. Initially, I worked at company A and I left for company B after getting 1-year vest of RSU. Then in a friends gathering, I learnt a trick to earn extra cash on your long RSU positions – selling covered calls. This embark my involvement in option trading. Options requires more close price watching, and I also find myself making decisions all the time; should I sell a call now? at which strike price? I already earned half of the premium, should I close the position or wait for it to expire? Making these decisions give me a feeling of agency, especially when I lack agency in my daily work.
As my career at company B became stagnant, I hopped to company C. Around that time, the US stock market started its ride on a roller coaster. Covid, the great Fed stimulus, the 2022 crash, then came ChatGPT … till today as of Jun 2026 it’s the storage and dRAM been on the stage. In the same time, the job market and workplace culture for tech has been a straight downturn. Works is becoming less and less fulfilling, gradually fulfillment is not the question anymore, it’s all about survive and do whatever to last longer at a still high-paying tech job. Watching the investment app becomes part of doomscrolling, something to occupy the brain to temprorily numb the anxiety and pressure at work.
Now I’m taking a break from corperate life, yet this habit stays. It’s now taking take the role of granting a sense of productivity, as if I’m actively working to earn money through trade. Except I’m not. Staring at watchlist and yahoo finance news do not make me a better investor. After acknowleging that I do not have the knowledge and experience to value a company like Buffet, and all my wins and loss are nothing but pure luck, carry out the best strategy (be a boglehead) is more on the psychological or emotional side.
I do not know when I can break out of this addiction. To force myself away from an addiction or habit often doesn’t work. So I need to find some more replacement activity to actually engage in.
One just need 21 days to form a habit, also just 21 days to replace a old habit with a new one. I hope I can succeed.