The FOMO Economy: Is Everyone Making Money But You?
Whether you’re into meme stocks, crypto, or real estate, buying seems driven as much by anxiety as by hope. Even professional investors who know better can’t resist getting in on the action.
Billionaire trader and investor Stanley Druckenmiller bought Bitcoin after watching its price go up and feeling the fear of missing out, aka FOMO. “I felt like a moron,” he said in an interview with the online news site the Hustle in May. He cashed out part of his $20 million bet after prices soared—“my heart’s never been in it”—but described the stampede of money managers into the cryptocurrency as an elephant trying to fit through a keyhole.
Druckenmiller has felt the FOMO before. In 1999 he loaded up on $6 billion worth of tech stocks, only to lose $3 billion in six weeks. “I was just an emotional basket case, and I couldn’t help myself,” he said years later. This time around, he looks more like a bellwether for a broader kind of investor panic-buying in developed economies after a bruising pandemic year. We are all Stanley Druckenmillers now.