Always feel like you are watching some other coin moon? Congrats! You have FOMO. Here is my perspective on how to deal with it.

1st time poster! I'll dispense with the introduction post and get right down to business: Living with FOMO.

If you follow follow the cryptocurrency market you likely have high levels of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). It’s hard not to as the cryptocurrency market moves at lightning speed. On top of that, the crypto market never sleeps. Therefore it’s more likely that you have a higher level of FOMO than with traditional securities that abide by their market working hours.

How much different is the crypto market from the traditional security world? How about a multiplier of 25! (Enneking). That means bear and bull market trends can last days/weeks instead of months/years.

If you are a crypto trader and claim that you don’t suffer high levels of FOMO you probably are a little delusional. Like the old saying goes: 95% of husbands know that the wife is the real boss. The other 5% are liars :)

I bet that more than once you went to bed with a large FOMO feeling only to wake up and check prices and kicked yourself for not “going with your gut.” Whether or not your gut can predict the future is not the focus here. The focus is how to manage FOMO and take the larger perspective on investing/trading. Taking the long view (or at least considering it) is important – no imperative – to remember before each trade because trading with a high level of FOMO rage is risky trading behavior and usually a losing strategy overall.

A recent example is NEO’s rocket moonshot from $7 to $50+ in the course of roughly a week. If you missed the rocket you probably wondered over the course of that week when the rocket would stop for you to jump in. In my opinion, if you missed the NEO rocket, there was not a good time without taking on significant risk that the very next day there would be a large pullback. A safer strategy (one that I myself deployed), was to wait for NEO to stabilize at whatever price and make a decision whether or not to enter at that point in time. If NEO mooned to $100 and stabilized at $75 – so be it. It was better than entering at $100 with FOMO and holding the bag at $75 or worse. In sum, with every rise there is ALWAYS a pullback and even an inexperienced trader knows that there are periods of stability when support/resistance lines are drawn. I know pullbacks happen because those are periods traders look for to enter into a position. As a HODLer or pre-HODLer you want pullbacks, as they encourage more riders to jump aboard (consolidation period).

There is a common phrase in trading: don’t try to catch a falling knife. It means don’t try to pick the bottom. Likewise, don’t try to guess if there is more room to moon. In hindsight tou may kick yourself for not listening to your gut, but it’s more likely that you just saved yourself losing your shirt.

The larger perspective, in my humble opinion, is that if you don’t catch one rocket, there will always be another rocket in the future. I’m old enough to remember when I was too young to have any money to catch the dot-com boom of the 90s and thinking that everyone is getting rich except me. The bubble burst (as expected) and there were winners and losers. But you know what? After that came all the FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) stock opportunities, as well as countless other exceptional performers after the burst. After FAANG growth stops, there will be other high flyers to be the darlings of Wall Street. Likewise, ten years from now there will be blockchain companies that will catch the twinkle in investors’ eyes and be the next best thing since sliced bread.

In sum, here is the big picture: you will miss more rockets to the moon than you will rides to the moon. There will always be rocket opportunities. Stay calm and trade on and find the appropriate risk level you want to take at a certain price point. If you find that you are getting burned more often than not, perhaps you should re-evaluate your appetite for current level of risk, because trading from FOMO, and your gut, are not typical winning trading strategies.

Yours Truly –
Kryptonaut

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8 THINGS A FOMO TRADER SAYS

If you find yourself among the following points, FOMO trading plays a role in your daily routine:

• “I knew it!” – the trader who followed a setup but didn’t take it
• “Not this time.“ – the trader who enters too early after a missed trade
• “I could have made so much money today.” – trader beating himself up with the benefit of hindsight
• “I waited so long for this trade.” – the overly anxious trader stalking a setup with a trigger-finger
• “It still has room to go.” – the trader who jumps in late after being too scared to enter first
• “I have a feeling…” – the trader reasoning himself into a trade without all entry criteria
• “One time.” – the trader in a speculative trade, hoping to get lucky
• “I just enter with a small position.” – the trader justifying breaking his rules

Source: Rolf

Bibliography

Enneking, T., “Life in Crypto Time.” www.coindesk.com (July, 2017).
Rolf. “Are you a FOMO trader? 8 things a FOMO trader says.” http://www.tradeciety.com (Jan, 2017)

If you have any FOMO stories please share below!

If you are an FOMO repeat offender admit it below and start your recovery!

Or just tell me I’m crazy. I want to hear from the community.