My end of the year newsletter generated the following comment at Seeking Alpha:

“I look at last year’s numbers and I feel all warm and content. I read articles like this and all that comfort disappears like it was never there. Reading this author is like taking your medicine, it’s good for your investing prowess, but it sure is not much fun. I guess folks find it bracing to write such things, ‘It’s for your own good.’ Ugh.The sad thing is that is likely a reasonable forewarning of disaster to come. Shoot the messenger, I say, let me bask in the sun of my success to date. Tomorrow we die, don’t you know, eat drink and be merry. It is good until it is no more.”

He’s right.

It’s the same thing as having to pass on a big, juicy hamburger and opt for the salad with low-fat dressing. It is not nearly as satisfying, but we do it because we don’t want to die from cardiac arrest.

The same thing with “working out.”We trudge to the gym to grind away on a stair-climber so we don’t drop dead from a heart attack. (Maybe, if they called it something more fun sounding, like “sex prepping,” people might be more inclined to actually do it.)

But when it comes to the investment world, doing something for the “health and welfare” of your portfolio, especially when regard for risk is at historic lows, is a “buzzkill.”

Hey, I get it.

In fact, right now, the view of hedging a portfolio is virtually non-existent. The chart below is the 50-dma of the CBOE SKEW Index (which is derived from the price of S&P 500 tail risk and is calculated from the prices of S&P 500 out-of-the-money options) divided by the volatility index (VIX).

With the “lack of fear” index at near record highs, who wants to hear about why things may not stay that way?

But, isn’t this exactly the reason that we SHOULD be worrying about what comes next? 

We diet, exercise and do all things we hate to try and live a healthier life. We buy life insurance to hedge off the risk of dying too soon. Yet, we don’t want to give the same concern toward the “health” of the one thing we are going to be MOST dependent upon in retirement – OUR SAVINGS.

This is why my missives most often discuss the “risk” of what could go wrong with the market and your money.