Tuesday, January 22, 2008
What to Do In A Bear Market
Many fiscal people now believe that we are headed for a major bear market. Part of the ground they believe this is because they believe that we are also headed for a major recession if we are not there already.
As investors, what should we be doing to protect ourselves during these drawn-out downswings in the market? Let's expression at a couple of strategies.
First, if you are an active investor and by active Iodine mean value that you regularly supervise your investments, put active halt loss points, and do buy/sell determinations on a fairly regular basis. If you fall into this category, the first thing you must make to protect your investings is to put proper halt loss points for every investing in your portfolio.
Typically, a 25% halt loss will protect your assets without causing a batch of inordinate purchasing and merchandising owed to minor marketplace fluctuations. A cardinal thing to retrieve is that halt loss points are fluid. That is, you should travel them as your investings addition in value. This procedure locks in some of the paper net income and protects against major down moves. An of import point to retrieve is that your halt loss should only be moved up as your investings addition in value. You should never set them down. This volition only halt up costing you money and lickings the whole intent of the stop loss in the first place.
Many active investors look at the overall marketplace and when the hazard of being invested in the marketplace goes greater than the possible for profit, they travel into hard cash and wait for the marketplaces to settle down down. After a major bear market, like we saw in the late 1960's and early 1970s, investors who were in hard cash were able to pick up investings at wholesale terms and made enormous additions in the ensuing old age as the marketplace began to recover.
If you are not an active investor, then the best manner to protect your investings during a bear marketplace is by proper diversification. Proper variegation makes not intend owning respective stock common funds. It intends investing in assets that have got small or no correlativity to the overall stock market. Investments like energy, cherished metals, natural resources, or reciprocal finances all measure up as suitable investings for a properly diversified portfolio.
Remember, bear marketplaces make not last forever. They eventually turn and go bull marketplaces and when they do, investors who have got preserved their investing working capital will be in a place to net income handsomely.
Labels: investing, portfolio management, retirement