The train is leaving the station
Ever since I started trading I noticed that I had a new best friend. It follows me around like my shadow, nagging me around every path that I walk and every corner I turn.
It is called FOMO.
I knew I'd experience fomo throughout my life in cryptocurrencies. How can one not? Missing a new high or a new low, missing a pump or a flash dump, missing that sweet buy-in opportunity or that perfect chance to sell because of whatever reason. I was game for this the moment I decided to begin to trade, except I had no idea what I was in for.
Fomo is your new best friend, and it exists literally everywhere that you do in cryptocurrency. It even exists when you weren't there.
It's there when you see those tiny little candles all the way down there months ago when Bitcoin was 3000 dollars. It's there when you're looking at the Ethereum ICO saying to yourself 'I'll just sit this one out and see how it goes'. Worst of all, it was there when your one friend casually mentioned this word "Bitcoin" in a conversation and you told them that was an interesting idea and never thought anything more of it.
Are you beginning to feel me now?
There's a bit more to it
However, whilst I expected to feel it in these macrocosmic situations, I never expected to also feel it at very fine intervals in my day to day trading life.
For example, I feel it when I close a sale and the price rises 1%. A 1% price rise on 1000 means an extra 10 dollars. You got lucky now, but what if you were trading 100000 dollars? That's a 1000 dollar gain you missed out on. Or that pump that you managed to catch 50% of, scoring what was objectively a great deal. Not good enough - didn't catch the full pump.
I would describe this feeling as virtually inescapable, and a feeling that you have to learn to live with at all skill levels as a trader. It is very difficult to disconnect from your emotions, but doing so will make you a better trader. Fomo has likely had a hand in every negative trade you have ever made, or every irrational or impulsive decision that took place that resulted going against you. Even as I write this and am acutely aware of the power of fomo, I know it will still affect me, even if I was a millionaire.
Heed your powerful feelings and don't let them get in the way of your goals!