Fear of Missing Out

The Composite Wealth Killer (Fear & Greed)

Fear of Missing Out has been the largest killer of money I have ever experienced.

I felt it just now.

What was I feeling it about? The S&P 500 - I felt that I hadn’t put enough into the S&P500 or that I haven’t been in it long enough.

I’ve seriously lost high six figures from Fear of Missing Out. It’s been a great lesson - but an expensive one.

Fear of Missing Out is that feeling when it looks like everyone is getting ahead and you are stationary or going backwards. You see what they are doing and rush to copy what they are doing without any feel or conviction as to why they are doing it. Sure you may have intuition as to what they are feeling, but you rush in nonetheless.

Fear Of Missing Out has been so destructive financially from my experience its almost like a composite of two other Financial Killers.

• Fear

• Greed

Fear of being left behind. Greed and lusting for those mooning rewards.

In fact I am so aware of FOMO that it is the number one item on my list of rules for investing that I check before making a purchase. Never FOMO.

Screenshot of my rule set 😄

Looksee - 28% in 1 year. Your lizard brain sees that and immediately projects the next year at 28% and the next year.

Taking a step back and looking at my beliefs and overlaying the S&P 500’s progress against my beliefs:

• Diversification isn’t just holding a broad index of US stocks

• The US won’t be the star of the show in the future - competition is coming in

• Shares on the stock market are the most “tokenized” and liquid from a ledger point of view

• Historic performance isn’t an indicator of future performance

• We are closing in on the end of the Long Term Debt Cycle for the US

• War/Conflict is also on the horizon

In summary -

Avoid FOMO at all costs

Never buy something based on FOMO. It will come back and kick your ass.