Bear Markets Suck, But Don't Give In to the Pain
Watching our nest eggs shrink amid the market plunge absolutely stinks, no two ways about it. But don't give in to your natural impulse to sell out.
I'd be lying if I said the bear market didn't hurt. I have my grumpy, complaining, "I can't take it anymore" moments, just like everyone else. The anxious questions swirl around our heads: What if capitalism really is dead and the market has much further to fall? Do we really have a new paradigm? Don't we need to protect ourselves from this possibility?
My instincts tell me that there's only one way to make the pain stop -- sell the remaining half of my family's stock holdings and get out now. At the very least, that would spare me from associating the dismal market with the collapse of our savings.
So why don't I get out? Stubbornness, perhaps, but there's also a logical method to the madness. New paradigms are all too common -- just look at the following chart. The first three turned out to be pretty foolish, and I'm betting that the current one will too.
"This time it's different" has a lousy track record
| Year | New Paradigm |
| 1999 Bull | It's a new age economy and cash flow doesn't matter. Stocks will go up forever. |
| 2002 Bear | The economy is in trouble. Stocks, having lost half their value, will continue to fall. |
| 2007 Bull | There is no problem lending money to people who can't pay it back because real estate values will always go up. The Dow will soon be at 40,000. |
| 2009 Bear | Capitalism is dead. Get out of the market now! |
My advice
It's possible that "this time, it really is different." It's also possible that I'll win the lottery or catch Angelina Jolie on the rebound. All I can say is that whenever I've heard about a new paradigm, reacting to it has almost always been the wrong thing to do.
Unless you have a huge portfolio relative to your life expectancy and expenditure rate, leaving it all in Treasury bonds practically guarantees it will get eaten by inflation and taxes. You may feel better in the short term, but you'd be selling your long-term goals short.
If you have the stomach to withstand possible future losses, and can wait ten years or more before touching the money, consider staying the course with a well diversified, ultra-low-cost global stock index portfolio combined with a shock absorber of high quality bond funds and U.S. government-backed CDs. Then, in the "do as I say and not as I do" category, try to avoid looking at the market or your portfolio value.