Chapter 22
Ten Tips for Investing in a Down Market
In This Chapter
Taking care of your investments when the market is on the decline
Keeping a level head amid the doom and gloom
Unless a lot of other breaking news occurs on a particular day, sharp drops in the stock market make headlines — stock market gyrations are great media fodder. Every day the market environment is different, and new stocks are always plunging and rising. And now, with more individuals holding stocks (including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds) through company and personal retirement plans, most folks watch financial market movements. In this chapter, I discuss how to maximize your chances for investing success when stocks take an extended turn for the worse.
Don’t Panic
No one enjoys turning on his car radio, clicking on his television set, or logging on to the Internet and getting this news: “Stocks plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial plummeted 400 points today.” When you hear this news, don’t panic — it’s just one day’s events. (In 2008, the market seemingly had day after day of such drops, and the events could accurately be described as a financial panic, the likes of which the nation hadn’t experienced in generations. I describe this situation more in the later section “View Major Declines as Sales ...
Get Investing For Dummies, 7th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
