Episode 56: Balancing Fear with FOMO
Segment 1:
HELLO Lower Alabama! Hello Gulf Coast! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. Thanks for joining us today, Josh Null here, joined by the one and only Michelle Lee Melton…Michelle, how are you doing? We are back in Coastal College’s recording studio, beautiful downtown Fairhope, ready to put together another great show for those of you tuning in!
Listeners: Michelle and I are here to discuss financial topics relevant to those of you in or near retirement, living your best life along our part of the gulf coast. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you today: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 30 minutes past the hour - “Michelle with the Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 50 minutes past the hour, stick around for our 3rd segment, we call it” Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth”. So buckle up, we’ve got a lot to get to!
Quick background on me for those new to the show. Again, my name is Josh Null, I am a fee-based financial advisor, I hold my FINRA Series 65 securities license, and I am the owner of Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, that’s a 100% locally owned, 100% independent investment management and financial planning firm with offices in Fairhope, Orange Beach, and Mobile! You can find more information on me and the team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors by visiting our website gulfcoastfa.com, or feel free to give us a call at 251-327-2124. If you missed that contact info, get a pen and pad ready because we will repeat our contact info several times throughout the show!
Before we get to our main topic, we have a huge favor to ask of our listeners. For the 2nd year in a row, this show Coasting in Retirement is up for what’s called a “Nappie” Award, that is a series of awards across many diverse businesses, put on by our beloved local weekly Lagnaippe. We are one of 6 finalists in the “Best Radio Lifestyle Show or Segment” category, and we are trying to win, baby, win this year, so we need your help! Please visit votenappies.com, go to the “Media” section, then look for us under the Radio Lifestyle segment. I am proud of the fact that I think we are the only financial show nominated, not just in our category but best I can tell across all radio categories, and while we have been on the air for 2 ½ years, we are still the baby of the competition, so that tells me we must be something right. Or maybe you listeners just really like Michelle. Whatever the reason you listen, we would really appreciate your vote, you can vote once per day, per email!
Alright, let’s get to the show. Michelle, you like roller coasters, right? What’s your favorite thing about them? Now, do I like roller coasters? Why not? Kind of like planes, right? I don’t fully trust that these hand built machines are not going to fail and kill me. Michelle, would you ever go to an amusement park and not ride at least one roller coaster? And am I perfectly fine toodling around all day at Silver Dollar City or Six Flags and not riding one single ride? So what I am going to do today is translate our different roller coaster approaches to how investors view the stock market. I’m also going to explain a concept for those of you that are like me and don’t care for roller coasters, especially those of you that don’t think you can stomach the extreme ups and downs of recent stock market volatility.
Let’s start with Michelle’s approach to roller coasters. Michelle has stated that she would not go to an amusement park and not ride at least one roller coaster. She doesn’t want to miss out on the ride. Now, while Michelle’s never going to trample people to get to the front of the roller coaster line, there is a there’s a concept in the investing world called “Fear of Missing Out”, commonly known as FOMO. The Oxford dictionary defines FOMO as “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere”, with the implication that you are missing out.
On the bad side of FOMO is that it can lead to impulsive decisions by investors because they see people, often on social media, supposedly making large profits on some type of unique investment. I coined a sister term to FOMO called “FOLO”, that is, “Fear of Looking Old”. A lot of you listening grew up in a very different time in regards to technology and investing, just like Michelle and I did, and sometimes when you see some young person hyping the “deal of the century”, you wonder if you apprehension is just because you’re out of date.
In my adult life, there have been 5 investing strategies that have played on this Fear of Missing Out / Fear of Looking Old that investors have. The first happened when Michelle and I graduated college in the late 90’s with the dot.com boom & bust, and to a lesser degree, the penny stock phenomenon that eventually produced criminals like the Wolf of Wall Street guy Jordan Belfort. The next FOMO event was the real estate bubble of the early 2000’s, once we cleared that we entered an era of cheap money, social media and ever-increasing computing power that eventually led to the rise of cryptocurrency, and shortly thereafter, artificial intelligence, or AI.
So – dot.com, penny stocks, real estate, crypto, AI. See any trends, a common thread, Michelle? Are there any similarities about how these various industries were and are hyped by typically young, typically male investing wannabe prophets? How the message has been consistent that if you don’t invest in these various opportunities that you’re somehow dumb, or outdated, or uninformed, or heaven help, that You’re. Missing. Out. On. The. Next. Big. Thing. I tell you listeners another common theme across these various investments. A small number of investors won big. Huge, even. But the far larger number, 80 to 90% of the people that got into them, lost their ass. Yes, crypto bro and AI honk, I realize that your story has not been fully written yet, and that for right now, you’re winning the day. But Uncle Josh has seen this story before. Are there opportunities to make money with these opportunities? Of course. I made millions in the 2000’s in real estate. But you know what else I did? I listened to charlatans like the Rich Dad Poor Dad guy and ignored the fundamentals of investing and was leveraged to the hilt. And it eventually sank me. My job as a seasoned and skeptical financial advisor is to use this real world experience and keep this nonsense from sinking your investment portfolio.
Speaking of me, so let’s talk about my fear of roller coasters. And planes. Really anything mechanical that, if it breaks, can kill me. Let’s put me on the other side of the equation as someone that doesn’t want anything to do with the roller coaster ride of the stock market. In this example, I don’t have FOMO or FOLO. As the avator for this type of investor, I just have fear of investing. Many of you listening have gotten bit by the stock market, maybe you panicked and sold out at the bottom, maybe you’ve heard enough horror stories about the stock market that you just want to avoid it altogether. Unfortunately, there’s a section of my industry that is dedicated, and I mean laser focused, on stroking this fear. These guys – just like the other FOMO driven investments, they’re typically guys - are going to show you all kinds of bad market numbers and dire return predictions, then present to you a product that will solve all of your problems and ease all of your fears. Yes, I’m talking about you annuity and Multi-Level Marketing Index Universal Life shops, and yes, I know that you’re hate listening. You have a product that can be very useful to those folks in or near or retirement, in a limited capacity. But you use your prospects’ own fears to push the percentage of a client’s investable assets that are placed in these contracts to an absurd level. Then you do it again when the surrender period is over, to generate yet another large upfront commission. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Fortunately for those you listening, there’s a way to move forward without dealing with these 2 extreme approaches. A way for you to participate in the stock market, or ride the roller coaster if you will, without fear of getting slung off the rails and crashing to the ground – my particular fear, by the way. What if I could pay a little extra for my roller coaster ride, a little extra on top of the price of my ticket that accomplished 2 things: one, whenever the coaster is plummeting down, I could flip a switch and pull up before the bottom of the drop, say, 20 feet short, and in exchange, all I had to give up was a little bit of the height that the coaster cranked me to, say, 5 feet? In other words, what if I could ride the ride with my fellow investors, but my ride was just a little bit…smoother. Almost as high, but certainly not nearly as low, with less difference between the 2 extremes, less…volatility. Michelle, would I like that? Would I buy that? Oh yes, yes I would.
What I just described is hedging, and I want our listeners to take a couple of things away from how we used the roller coaster as a metaphor. Or allegory, I never know which is which. Anyway, in our example, even though I am using an hedging option to stop 20 feet short of the bottom of the coaster drop, I am still dropping, because even in our portfolios, investors will experience some volatility and some drop in value when the overall market is getting beat up. The exchange for having that downside protection is that you still get to participate in most of the market gains when the market is increasing in value. All investing involves risk, and while there are certainly products that promise you 0% loss floors, or, no roller coaster if you will, for the part of your investment portfolio that needs to keep ahead of inflation and monetary supply growth, I would put our system up against anyone else’s approach.
Listeners, if you’ve liked what you’ve heard so far and want to start the conversation about your own personal investing and retirement goals and dreams, we encourage you to reach out to us. You can call us at 251-327-2124, or find us on our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, all the way to an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations. You can find GCFA offices in downtown Fairhope, or Orange Beach just down the road from the Wharf, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you!
Alright folks, coming up next - There’s always a lot going on in the world! Particularly the world of finance, investments and money. Every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those in or near retirement. Join us after the break to hear Michelle and I discuss this week’s relevant headlines in our “Michelle with the Headline of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!
https://www.morningstar.com/markets/5-strategies-riding-market-roller-coaster
2. Michelle: Next up, an article titled “4 pitfalls to avoid when rolling over a 401(k) to an IRA” found on Fidelity.com. To be honest with you, I always thought a 401k rollover was an easy peasy thing, but after reading this article I can see where someone could accidentally screw it up big time. The article discusses how you need have the correct type of IRA set up to receive the rollover funds, that there could be withholding issues depending on whom the check is written to, and that some 401k rollovers often stall for no apparent good reason. I know 401(k) rollovers are something you deal with quite a bit, right? Josh – weekly if not daily. So walk us thru the do’s and don’ts of a 401k rollover, please.
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/401k-rollover-mistakes
3. Josh, in case you didn’t hear, social security is making the news, with recent chatter about extending the full retirement age from age 67 to age 68 or later, or possibly eliminating federal income taxes on benefits. I keep hearing that the social security trust fund is going to run out of money in 10 years or less! You’re more optimistic about social security than I am, so I ignored all of the doom and gloom news headlines and found something from our friends at Motley Fool. They have a fresh off the press article titled “How to Tell if You’re Ready to Start Collecting Social Security”. Just like with 401k rollovers, I always thought deciding when to start social security was a fairly simple process, but my goodness there sure seems a lot of pitfalls to making any mistakes when claiming benefits, not even taking into consideration that there might not be any money left! Make me feel better, please.
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2025/05/14/are-you-ready-to-start-collecting-social-security/
4. Last article for this week, from Yahoo Finance, it’s titled “7 Dangerous Assumptions That Can Quickly Kill Your Retirement Savings”. The article details common assumptions by folks entering into retirement, such as they will live an average lifespan, stay healthy during retirement, or that their expenses will decrease. I chose this article because I had a couple of questions around something you mentioned with our last headline, comprehensive financial planning. First, can your planning software really accommodate all of these unknown variables in retirement, especially the bad stuff, and if so, how do you keep it from being just a total downer when discussing with your clients? “Sorry Mr Client, according to my software, you’re going to have a massive heart attack within 5 years and as for you, Mrs. Client, it says that you are going to lose all of your money to a crypto scam within 24 months. You both are kinda screwed. Here’s my bill”. Is that how the conversations go?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-dangerous-assumptions-retirement-could-110228082.html
Listeners, I hope you learned something from our discussion around these recent financial headlines, all of this matters to your money! Speaking of money, if you would like to start the conversation with us about your investments and retirement planning, you can call us at 251-327-2124 or find us through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, all the way to an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations. You can find GCFA offices in downtown Fairhope, or Orange Beach off Canal Road, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you!
Alright folks, coming up next: Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth. What have been some of my predictions? Have I been right? Was I ever wrong? How wrong? What do I think is going to affect investors in the near future, or maybe the distant future? We talk about all of these things and poke a little fun at my big mouth. Stay tuned!
Segment 3 – Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth:
Welcome back! Your host Josh Null here, alongside co-host Michelle Lee Melton. So, I am opinionated, I have strong opinions at times, I would say a radio show host that isn’t probably wouldn’t be very interesting to listen to. And I am paid in my profession to offer professional guidance and opinions to my clients, otherwise what use am I? Just replace me with AI. I like making predictions, and while I usually proved right, there are times I swing and I miss. Want to hear me eat a little crow? Then let’s get at with Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth.
Josh, you stated publicly that the efforts of Elon Musk’s DOGE would not result in significant federal budget savings and that is was all just jazz hands for Musk to remove regulatory obstacles to his various businesses while collecting valuable data on millions of American citizens, and that the backlash would eventually force Musk to exit, stage right. And while you were optimistic that tariffs could spur more high value manufacturing on American soil, you were skeptical that US investors and consumers would be willing to endure the mathematical certainty of high prices AND potentially higher interest rates, a phenomenon called “Stagflation” that American hasn’t experienced since you and I were we little elementary brats. How are those 2 predictions worked out so far, in your opinion?
Doge - $150B supposed savings vs goal of $2 trillion, I was dead right, unless people are willing to cut entitlements, military spending and stop paying the interest on our federal debt, taking a “chain saw” to discretionary spending was just jazz hands. Side note – as someone that has operated chain saws a lot in my life, especially when I worked with my Dad, do you think Musk has ever actually used one? Me neither. Tariffs – as of right now, with the recently announced UK and China agreement progress, I must say, I look wrong. Charles Barkley used to tell a funny story about one time when he almost got mugged. He said if you’re ever outnumbered in a fight, you just have to convince your opponent that you’re far crazier than they are. According to Barkley, he got jumped one night in Milwaukee by three weightlifters, and being outnumbered, he decided to take all of his clothes off in the freezing cold and do a karate kid impersonation. He wanted the 3 thugs to think he was crazy, and apparently it worked. Well, congratulations to President Trump, and I mean this, he convinced China that he was crazy. And it worked. At least so far.
Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed a little peek into how we form our opinions and make predictions. We invite you one last time, if you would like to have a no-pressure, no-obligation conversation about your investing goals and retirement dreams, you can call us at 251-327-2124, or find us through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, all the way to an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations. You can find GCFA offices in downtown Fairhope, or Orange Beach off Canal Road, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you!
That’s our show for this week! I want to give a huge thank you to my lovely co-host, Michelle Lee Melton, thank you to our show sponsor, Providence Partners and Jay Stubbs, thank you to our two awesome radio stations, FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile and WHEP 92.5 FM & 1310 AM out of Foley, many thanks to the provider of our show music, local band Sloth Racer, huge thank to the show producer, my son Payton Null, and as always my sincere appreciation for all of your out there that have been listening and joining us on this journey. We would love to be a part of your journey as well! Remember – votenappies.com! Until we talk again, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null!
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