Patience is a Virtue

Once, and only once, I gave my mother-in-law financial advice.

At her request I advised and encouraged her to buy 500 Mt Isa Mines shares. From memory, the buy-up price was £1/5/0 (25 shillings). I also advised her not to sell them until I told her to.

Four or five months down the track I rang her and said “You can sell those Mt Isa shares now – ring the broker and give him a price to sell of £2/15/6”. Her response left me speechless – “I can’t do that. I sold them 2 months ago”. I didn’t have to ask what price she’d sold for. I’m sure she made a small profit, but equally sure it was considerably smaller than a slightly longer wait would have produced.

FOMO isn’t a technical term, but it is used often in the investing world. The fear of missing out can certainly work insidiously when making either of these decisions:

“Do I sell now or later” or Do I buy now or later”

Image source: Pix4free.org - link to - https://pix4free.org/