Did You Miss the Rally?

It feels like it was just yesterday that lot of *advices* were floating around in the personal finance blog community on how you should get out of the markets if the 1000+ points drop of the Dow (the Dow as 14,000 on July 19 and 12,845 on August 16) made you sweating and get up in the middle of the night worrying your investments. Granted, the 1,155 points loss was huge in less than 30 days. But is it the right thing to do to simply get out when you are nervous(or make any dramatic change to your investment strategy)?

If “Get out” was indeed what you have done, you may now in an entirely different mood, regretting your action, as both the Dow and the S&P 500 not only reclaimed all the losses, but also are entering new territories they have never been before.

Sure there’s no guarantee how the markets will perform tomorrow, next month, or next year. It may lose 10% again. But if you have a long term investment plan, it shouldn’t be altered by short term market fluctuations. Adjustments is fine, but upside down change isn’t the right course to take.

You are not a kid. Stop investing like one!

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