The start of 2024 saw a quick drop in the stock market. This happened because many people got too comfortable with the gains they saw at the end of last year. It's always tough to lose some of the profits you've made, but it's even tougher if you bought stocks late when they were already high. Avoiding common mistakes can really help you stay ahead in the market. You can tell that people quickly switched from being eager to buy (FOMO) to being scared (FEAR) by looking at the percentage of stocks doing better than they were five days ago – it dropped from 87.6% last week to just 25% today.