Dustin Rinaldi Shares Tips on Surviving Market Turbulence
Most stock market investors are looking for the same result: strong and steady gains of their investments.
Dealing with a period of sustained falling stock prices is not easy. All too often, investors react to a sharp drop in prices by panic selling or digging in their heels despite deteriorating fundamentals. But more thoughtful investors see a correction or downturn as an opportunity to review the risks in their portfolios and make adjustments where necessary.
When confronted with any adverse market event — whether it is a one-day blip, a more lengthy market correction (a decline of between 10% to 20%), or a prolonged bear market (a decline of more than 20%) – take time to review your portfolio. Dealing with volatility can be difficult. Here are some suggestions to help you and your portfolio survive market turbulence.
Keep a long-term perspective. The only certainty about the stock market is this: It will always experience ups and downs. That’s why it’s important to keep emotions in check and stay focused on your financial goals. A buy-and-hold strategy — making an investment and then holding on to it despite short-term market moves — can help. The opposite of buy-and-hold investing is market timing — buying and selling investments based on what you think the market will do next. Market timing, as most investment professionals will tell you, is risky. If your predictions are wrong, you could invest when the market is on its way down or sell when it’s on its way up. In other words, you risk locking in a loss or missing the market’s best days.