This situation reminds me of an anecdote I once heard as a child. The teller recounted how he had watched two vendors selling candy at a local fair and noticed that even though both were selling the same product for the same price, one had a longer line of customers. Curious about this, he asked the more popular vendor what his secret was. And the man explained that the product was sold by weight, and whereas his competitor would begin by putting a big scoop into the bag and then take the surplus out, he would always start with a smaller scoop and then (as though he were doing his customers a special favour) add a little more to top it up.

I feel like we’re the customers who watched that big scoop of candy get taken from our bags, and I suspect that if the share price had simply climbed from $3.00 to $5.00 (with an extra 22 cents added on top), we would be feeling much better about our purchase. It’s just human psychology.