The Lost Lamborghini Syndrome: how FOMO destroys your mental health and savings

Introduction

Every investor has encountered this scenario: you see an asset that has soared tenfold in a short span and are tempted to simply assume you could have multiplied your savings by that same rate. This leap, while intuitive, leads directly to risky thinking.

The result on the calculator screen is the amount you could have had if you had made the investment earlier. At this point, your brain makes a critical mistake: it begins to perceive this hypothetical amount not as “unrealised profit” but as your personal money that you have just lost.

This cognitive bias, known as “Lost Lamborghini Syndrome,” causes genuine stress and disappointment over missed opportunities. Its real danger lies not just in the resulting bad mood, but in how it drives people to make rash financial decisions, leading to actual capital losses.

The economic mechanism of losses: how psychology affects deposits

The main danger of the feeling of lost profits lies not in the emotional regret itself, but in how this state of mind alters risk assessments. When an investor perceives hypothetical lost profits as a real loss of their own funds, their priority shifts from capital preservation to immediate compensation for this “loss”. Rational analysis of the market situation is replaced by the desire to restore the financial balance as quickly as possible, which exists only in the investor’s imagination.

This often leads to the purchase of an asset at its peak value. The investor enters the market after the main growth phase has already occurred, mistakenly believing that past performance guarantees future results. At this point, fundamental or technical indicators that signal an asset’s overvaluation are ignored. The decision to buy is based solely on the fear of missing out on further price growth, rather than on objective data.

From the perspective of market microstructure, such actions by retail investors provide liquidity for large players. When inexperienced participants buy an asset en masse at its peak price, professional investors who purchased it much earlier use this demand to sell their positions and lock in profits. In effect, funds are redistributed, with capital moving from those acting on emotion to those implementing a pre-planned exit strategy.

The final stage of this process is market correction. Since the asset was purchased at an inflated price, even a slight decline in quotations leads to a negative balance on the account. An investor without a plan of action in the event of a price drop finds himself trapped, unwilling to take a loss and hoping for a recovery that may not come for a long time. Thus, virtual “lost profits” are transformed into very real financial losses.

Mental exhaustion

Constant focus on lost opportunities can lead to persistent cognitive distortion, a phenomenon in psychology known as counterfactual thinking. People spend significant intellectual resources modelling past scenarios that are no longer possible to realise. Instead of analysing the current market situation and planning future steps, the focus shifts to events that cannot be changed.

A direct consequence of this process is the devaluation of real personal achievements. When the internal criterion for success becomes the hypothetical excess profit that an investor could have received, the actual financial results begin to seem insignificant. A stable income from one’s main professional activity, planned growth in savings, or the average market return on a conservative portfolio no longer bring satisfaction. Slow but steady progress is perceived as failure, leading to decreased motivation and general apathy towards everyday tasks.

In the long term, this state of affairs changes the very attitude towards the investment process, bringing it closer to gambling addiction. The desire to quickly obtain a result commensurate with the “lost” opportunity forces a person to look for assets with extremely high volatility. This creates constant psychological tension, accompanied by obsessive monitoring of quotes and news. Being in a state of constant anxiety and anticipation exhausts the nervous system, leading to emotional burnout and an inability to make informed decisions.

From FOMO to JOMO

Overcoming lost-opportunity syndrome requires a conscious shift in cognitive attitude from fear of missing out (FOMO) to the joy of missing out (JOMO). This approach is based on rationally accepting the limitations of resources and attention. Investors must recognise that, statistically, it is impossible to profit from all market price movements. In this context, consciously refusing to participate in a transaction that does not align with one’s personal investment declaration or acceptable level of risk is not a mistake but a manifestation of systemic discipline. The ability to ignore the volatility of assets outside the chosen strategy’s scope is a key indicator of professionalism.

An effective way to consolidate this approach is to shift the focus from evaluating financial results to evaluating the quality of decision-making. In the short term, profit may result from chance rather than competence. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the logic of actions at the time they are taken, rather than after the fact. If an investor has refused to buy an asset due to objectively high risks and the asset’s price subsequently rises, the initial decision remains correct from a capital management perspective. This approach allows you to separate random luck from systematic results and reduce the psychological pressure of monitoring the market.

To achieve practical emotional stability, it is advisable to apply the ‘zero point’ principle. This technique involves daily reassessment of the situation based solely on the current state of assets, without accounting for missed opportunities. Investors should act as if their financial history began today. This eliminates the cognitive bias associated with regret about the past and focuses attention on the only factor that can be controlled, namely, the effective allocation of available resources in current market conditions.

Conclusions

An investor’s long-term financial performance depends not on the number of successful speculative transactions but on the ability to adhere to the chosen strategy and risk management rules. The lost profit syndrome is a cognitive bias that distorts the objective assessment of reality. Focusing on hypothetical profits that were not earned in the past is counterproductive because it distracts from analysing the current market situation and leads to emotional decisions that contradict the logic of capital preservation.

It is necessary to accept as a fact that the inability to take advantage of all price movements in the market is a statistical norm. The market environment generates an excessive number of signals, and filtering these signals in accordance with one’s own trading system is a sign of professional competence, not a missed opportunity. Attempts to compensate for “lost” profits by increasing risks in subsequent transactions usually lead to real financial losses and destabilisation of the investment portfolio.

The basis of financial stability is disciplined execution of the investment plan and evaluation of results based on real indicators. The ability to refrain from rash actions under the influence of market noise is an important skill that directly affects the final financial result.

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