Some reflections on this article I came across while scrolling through social media, I related to the title of the article and it attracted me to take a closer look at it. I do feel that investing is being "stuffed" into everyone's face nowadays, as staying home and the rise of brokerages that promote gamification or make investing look/feel like a game is getting more popular.
As news on meme stocks and cryptocurrencies appear frequently, examples of people 1000X and even becoming millionaires explodes on both social and news platforms. It seems that as long as you invest, you are bound to profit as communities are formed around these investments.
I consider myself to be rather risk-adverse which explains why my portfolio has not exploded in size. I like to make sure things are more or less secure before putting money in and if not small amount of money in as I do not have a large income. Seeing news of dogecoin millionaires and how so many millennials have become millionaires through cryptocurrencies does make me FOMO and think, "Wow, that could have been me if I had invested that sum in." But to be honest, would I even dare to invest $100,000 into dogecoin at a time when it wasn't mainstream/popular yet? I don't think I would and also because currently, I do not have $100,000 yet.
How I feel about FOMO
It is easy to feel affected as you see other gain their wealth in such a short amount of time with stocks or cryptocurrencies that you have all along knew but lacked the conviction or sum of money to go all in! This is definitely because what we see is the ending, the part where the individuals are successful in multiplying their capital. But I am sure that there are many much more cases where individuals have lost much more by dumping in due to FOMO. Some say to stay away from social media but I do think at times, staying away from some news outlets are also necessary as they tend to do up clickbait articles that show you all the get rich formulas which could really go 2 ways.
Nuggets from the article (Quotes/Paragraph from article)
This Bloomberg business article might be the news that I should stay away from but there are nuggets of it which I find a good read. One such paragraph is the one below.
"Today, a new generation of stock traders has known market crashes only as short-lived dip-buying opportunities, leading to a record rise in brokerage account openings."
I really relate to this because I started investing in 2018 which means I haven't experienced a crash as bad as the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis. The worse I have been through would have to be the COVID-19 dip which occurred around Feb/March 2020 but even then, the effects of that dip was short and the markets even recovered to hit ATH (all time highs after) and it is still alive. Sense of looming danger, no risk protection.
"People flush with pent-up savings after a year of lockdowns have more ways than ever to throw darts at the financial dartboard: zero-commission, zero-minimum trading apps; social media message boards; and exchange-traded funds you can hop in and out of as easily as stocks, including a few that explicitly play to the trend-chasing crowd with such tickers as BUZZ and, yes, FOMO."
This is rather true to a certain extent, having stimulus money and cash saved aside from not travelling and having to stay at home, most of my peers have seen their savings increase during this period. And when you are exposed to information of people having their money 100X or multiply within such a short period of time, it's easy to feel like you are missing out on the gains.
"The pandemic has accelerated a feeling of helplessness alongside technological disruption and euphoria at the possibility of huge returns—rather like the dot-com boom, when the internet was understood less in technological terms than as a powerful story."
It can really go anywhere from here, I would say that current sentiments towards investing seems positive as most people would have made some gains from it. Even if they have not, there are various communities and forums that push this idea to HODL and that it will eventually turn grow to ATH. But I mean you really never know what's gonna happen next, a trigger is all it takes to send the market crashing.
My thoughts
For me, working from home for an extended period of time, it seems like the stock market is the most interesting thing in my life especially when the heightened measures were introduced. Friends and family gatherings were reduced and there's really not much except to eat, sleep, work, watch drama and repeat. So going online to Reddit and reading post on how others managed to increase their investments does affect you in a way, of course, I tell myself that I know I won't be able to handle the risks but I mean just thinking about if I managed to strike that pot of gold, how am I going to spend it?
Another thing is how I am watching more youtube videos than ever (plug for my own channel as well) but it seems that people have huge amount of money to invest while I wait patiently each month to save before being able to invest. It does feel like I am complaining haha but what I want to put across is really that we only see the successful cases where they managed to increase their portfolio by taking a larger than normal risks or putting in a huge amount of capital hence making their gains being more substantial. Happy investing and hope you guys enjoyed this article!
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