moneywatch Feature Package
After 17 months of a grindingly awful bear market, the worst since the Great Depression, a few glimmers of economic hope have made stocks act like it’s 1999 again. Now, in spite of yourself, the fear you felt during the crash is probably giving way to a panic that you might miss your chance to get your money back. If ever you believed that investing was a rational endeavor, this emotional whipsaw ought to put that notion to rest.
So was March 6 the end of the bear market, or wasn’t it? The only answer is, nobody can know until long after it’s too late to take advantage. In the meantime, you still have decisions to make. To make the right ones, you first have to get a grip on those emotions — in particular, that dangerous upwelling of investor greed — and renew your focus on a long-term investment plan you can stick with. At the same time, you’ll want to get familiar with signs that in the past have proven to be signals of a true bottom.
The idea here isn’t to help you time the market, because you can’t. You’ll only hurt yourself if you try. Instead, the goal is to remind yourself that in times like these, emotion is your enemy. Perspective and planning are your friends.
