The danger of hype investing

When I first started Camp Wealth, a book I read encouraged me that along with making sure your brand is clear on what you stand for, you also need to be clear on what you stand against.

The book said my brand needed some enemies.

The Camp Wealth enemies are:

• Salesy & pushy financial advisors
• Insurance salesmen disguised as financial advisors
• Traditional retirement
• Hype investing

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I’ve been after enemy #4 lately: hype investing.

What is hype investing?

Hype investing is when a crowd "hypes" up a specific "investment". Usually not based in logic or reasoning.

Hype investing involves a lot of emotions and FOMO.

And almost always focuses on speculative higher-risk investments.

You guys remember r/wallstreetbets and GameStop?

Perfect example of hype investing.

At the peak of hype investing you had a lot of social media gurus saying things like this:

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Ahh market timing. Super simple, right? (sarcasm)

Now, with the down year of 2021, hype investing has calmed down a bit.

Apparently “stonks” don’t always go up.

But there are still financial gurus out there who promote their ability to capture above average returns.

Or “get rich quick” schemes.

Be wary of this.

When you’re in your accumulation phase (20’s-40s), you likely aren’t *missing out* on huge returns when you avoid the hot investment trends.

Avoid these trends and focus on sustainable long-term investing instead.

Yes, it’s boring. Yes it’s slow.

But it is the way to reliably build wealth.

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, once asked Warren Buffett: "You're the second richest guy in the world. Your investment thesis is so simple. Why don't more people just copy you?"

To which Buffett replied, "Because nobody wants to get rich slow."