In terms of investing, people oftentimes freak out and abandon their investments
when the market goes down.
Their fear is “Well if | leave the money in there, maybe it will be worth nothing.
Better take it out now, while it’s worth something and stick it in my mattress.”
When the market goes down, it’s scary for people. They are afraid they are going
to lose their life savings. They are afraid that they won’t have enough money to
live on in Retirement.
Take last year. The market had a big downturn in February and March. If you
pulled out in that time, you lost a substantial amount of money. But by holding on,
markets rebounded, and people were up by year end.
The last thing you want to do when markets go down is to sell and get out. Selling
guarantees you are going to lose money.
Also, you don’t want to wait for the “market to go up” before buying. That would
be the equivalent of saying “I’m going to wait until things go up in price before | go
to shop at Costco.” Why would anyone wait for things to get more expensive
before buying it?
Always keep these 4 keys to successful investing in mind:
- Invest early.
- Invest regularly
- Don’t try to time the market. It’s time IN the market that counts.
- Don’t worry about markets going up and down. That’s your advisors job.
