Summary: Seeing others (apparently) get rich creates pressure to join, and makes caution look like cowardice. FOMO, amplified by social media and frictionless brokerage apps, is what “killed” South Korean retail portfolios in 2026. It also inflates bubbles: in the AI boom, merely adding “AI” to a company’s name attracts money, and leveraged AI ETFs appear, not because it’s justified but because investors fear missing the gains.
Key ideas
- In a long rally, the careful person starts to sound like a coward rather than rational, as in Israeli real estate 2010–2022 (lazy-investing—108-the-leverage-trap, tamir).
- Opening a trading account now takes minutes; brokers, as service providers, give the crowd whatever it wants, including one-click leverage (lazy-investing—108-the-leverage-trap).
- People post engagements and gains, not breakups and losses. Don’t conclude you’re being left behind (lazy-investing—108-the-leverage-trap).
- “AI bread”, “sunscreen AI”: an AI label draws investment out of fear of missing out, not merit; leveraged AI ETFs are the extreme (lazy-investing—111-the-ai-bubble, tamir).
Disagreements & open questions
Takeaways
- Don’t act on investment success stories seen on Instagram/TikTok (lazy-investing—108-the-leverage-trap)