.Cooper.
Silver
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Not a financial advisor. Personal experience only, not advice, do your own research.
START HERE
FOMO is probably the single biggest reason people abandon a long term strategy. Not fear, not bad research, FOMO. It doesn't feel like a mistake while it's happening, it feels like an opportunity you'd be stupid to miss.
FOMO isn't a sign you're bad at this. It's a social pressure mechanism, seeing other people supposedly making fast money triggers a very real fear of missing out on free money. Your brain doesn't process "everyone's talking about this stock" any differently than it processes other social proof signals.
This is really just Guide 1.1 wearing a different hat. Comparison and social pressure are the delivery mechanism, but the actual failure is the same one, reacting instead of sticking to a plan.
Think of the last stock you got excited about from a group chat, forum, or social media instead of your own research. Did you actually evaluate it, or did you just not want to miss out?
Long Term Investing 1.7 [FOMO and Hype Cycles]
◆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◆START HERE
Why This Deserves Its Own Guide
FOMO is probably the single biggest reason people abandon a long term strategy. Not fear, not bad research, FOMO. It doesn't feel like a mistake while it's happening, it feels like an opportunity you'd be stupid to miss.
What a Hype Cycle Actually Looks Like
- A ticker starts showing up everywhere at once, forums, group chats, comment sections
- The reasons people give for buying get vaguer the more popular it gets. Early on it's specifics, later it's just "it's going to the moon"
- Price action becomes the entire argument. Nobody's talking about the business anymore, just the chart
- By the time you're hearing about it from five different places, a lot of the move already happened
Why It Works On Smart People Too
FOMO isn't a sign you're bad at this. It's a social pressure mechanism, seeing other people supposedly making fast money triggers a very real fear of missing out on free money. Your brain doesn't process "everyone's talking about this stock" any differently than it processes other social proof signals.
The people posting their gains rarely post when it reverses. You're seeing a highlight reel, not the full picture, and it's making decisions for you without you realizing it.
How I Actually Deal With It
- If I hear about something from hype instead of research, I treat that as a red flag, not a lead
- I ask myself if I'd still want this position if nobody else was talking about it right now
- I give it time. Real theses don't disappear in a week, hype usually does
- I check whether I actually understand the business, or just the narrative around the stock
The Connection Back to Mindset
This is really just Guide 1.1 wearing a different hat. Comparison and social pressure are the delivery mechanism, but the actual failure is the same one, reacting instead of sticking to a plan.
SYSTEM CHECK
Think of the last stock you got excited about from a group chat, forum, or social media instead of your own research. Did you actually evaluate it, or did you just not want to miss out?
