Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of February 17, 2016

Article Excerpt

One big risk of volatile, declining markets is that they can spur you to make impulsive sell decisions. They lead some investors to sell “at the bottom”—that is, to sell some if not all their best holdings right around the time when the market hits what will turn out to be its low. In hindsight, it may seem that the best way to deal with this risk is to sell when a market downturn is just getting started. That would be the best way—if only it were possible! But nobody can foresee how long a drop in prices will last, nor how far down it will go. You can find lots of systems and signals and gurus that that guessed right, once or several times in a row. Eventually, though, they all guess wrong. One wrong guess can create losses that far outweigh gains from a series of lucky guesses. One problem for unsuccessful investors is that they live by the…