FOMO

FOMO is the anxiety that everyone else is making money while you are missing out. Driven by that feeling, people repeatedly commit money without doing the work first.

Its mechanics are cruel. News coverage and conversation only intensify after a price has already risen a great deal, so FOMO peaks near the top.

Social media amplifies it. Profits get posted and losses do not, producing a distorted picture in which everyone appears to be winning.

The outcome is largely fixed: buying at the high, failing to endure the decline, and selling at the low. It is one reason individual investors' actual returns fall short of the index.

The defence is a rule set in advance. Automating a fixed monthly amount into chosen assets keeps decisions steady even when the news is loud. Missed opportunities will keep appearing. Markets do not disappear and the next chance always arrives, so having missed this one is not itself a loss. It also helps to remember that you cannot verify anyone else's returns. What you are comparing yourself against is often an unverified story.