“Everybody’s Getting Rich (and Having Fun) Except Me”

June 24, 2021

The idea of “missing out” on stock market gains “literally generates fear in many people”

By Elliott Wave International

Hardly anyone wants to miss the party — whether on Wall Street or elsewhere.

Thus, the acronym FOMO — which stands for the “fear of missing out” — is in vogue. After a 12-years long bull market, the acronym has appeared in many financial articles.

Yet, the acronym was coined years before the current bull market.

As the March 2019 Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, a monthly publication which provides analysis of major U.S. financial markets, noted:

The “fear of missing out” and its abbreviation were coined by Dr. Dan Herman. … It was first published in The Journal of Brand Management in 2000, coincident with the front edge of the Great Peaking Process. … After more than 200 years of rising stock prices, not being in the stock market literally generates fear in many people. The underlying cultural dynamic is also appropriate as it coincides perfectly with the long-term peak in social mood.

Social mood also governs attitudes and behaviors in society-at-large, including social life.

Free Reports:

Get our Weekly Commitment of Traders Reports - See where the biggest traders (Hedge Funds and Commercial Hedgers) are positioned in the futures markets on a weekly basis.

Download Our Metatrader 4 Indicators – Put Our Free MetaTrader 4 Custom Indicators on your charts when you join our Weekly Newsletter

As a June 7 New York magazine article says:

The city runs on FOMO, a connoisseurship of opportunities and possibilities; the catechism of “Did you get invited, are you on the list, can you get a table?”; the performance of plans.

So, the “fear of missing” out on rising stock prices goes hand-in-hand with the “fear of missing out” on a fun social life. The desire to “see and be seen” and “live it up” is especially pronounced during times of an exceptionally positive social mood (think the Roaring ’20s).

So, social mood is all encompassing. And, returning to the financial aspects, here’s the latest on that front from Marketwatch (May 25):

[The] FOMO ETF [started] trading on the Cboe Options Exchange on [May 25], providing the market with a new tool for leveraging the retail trading boom by investing in all the buzziest “meme stocks” and funds from special-purpose acquisition corporations … to crypto-adjacent investments.

Right now, hardly anyone appears to be contemplating the total opposite of FOMO — which one of Elliott Wave International’s analysts said is the acronym FOBI. It stands for the “fear of being in.”

In other words, when social mood shifts from positive to negative (ushering in the next bear market), expect the “fear of being in” to replace the “fear of missing out.”

Remember, at the end of the 1920s, the stock market crashed. Social life — which had been characterized by vibrancy — was soon covered by a heavy blanket of gloom. The Wave Principle suggests that the next financial and social shift might be even more dramatic.

If you’d like to learn about the Wave Principle, you can do so by reading the online version of Frost & Prechter’s Wall Street classic, Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior for free.

Here’s a quote from the book:

It is a thrilling experience to pinpoint a turn, and the Wave Principle is the only approach that can occasionally provide the opportunity to do so.

The ability to identify such junctures is remarkable enough, but the Wave Principle is the only method of analysis that also provides guidelines for forecasting. Many of these guidelines are specific and can occasionally yield stunningly precise results.

All that’s required for free access to the book is a Club EWI membership — which is also free.

Club EWI is the world’s largest Elliott wave educational community (about 350,000 members and growing rapidly) and offers members free access to a wealth of Elliott wave resources on investing and trading.

Just follow this link to get started: Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior — free and unlimited access.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline “Everybody’s Getting Rich (and Having Fun) Except Me”. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.