I’M DETERMINED NOT to repeat my mistakes of 2008-09. I was ruined by that financial crisis or, more accurately, I let it ruin me. I led into it with my chin.
I’ll spare you the details of my personal situation in the years leading up to the crash, but the upshot is I was egotistical, financially reckless and looking for a big score. As the crisis unfolded, I piled risk upon risk, mistake upon mistake.

TIMES LIKE THESE test the mettle of investors. Want to pass the test? Here are 27 things to do now:

Keep buying stocks. Remember your regret at failing to load up on bargain-priced shares in early 2009? Don’t make that mistake again.
If you’re panicked and tempted to dump stocks, talk to a friend or, alternatively, hire a financial advisor—one required to act as a fiduciary—to coach you through this decline.
Ponder what makes you happy.

AS THE STOCK MARKET repeatedly hit new highs in recent years, my net worth reached levels I hadn’t expected. But instead of feeling good about it, I was getting annoyed. Most of my retirement dollars had been invested over the past decade at high stock market valuations. I could use a good bear market so that, in my few remaining years in the workforce, I bought stocks cheap.
I also worried that a prolonged downturn at the worst possible time might derail my early retirement plans.

LAST FRIDAY AT 7:16 A.M., I sent an email to HumbleDollar’s editor. We were discussing what this blog post should be about. This was before I got the news alert that S&P 500 futures were up bigtime, following the historic selloff the day before.
I concluded my email to Jonathan this way: “The market never gives you the big fat target you want. I’ve got great plans if the market behaves today like it did yesterday,

FOLLOWING THE STOCK market’s steep decline, sensible investors are faced with three alternatives. The first two are fairly straightforward, but the third option is worth some discussion.
1. Do nothing. If all of your assets are in retirement accounts and you’re comfortable with your risk level, you might choose to tune out the news and do nothing at all. Similarly, if your portfolio doesn’t include any stock market investments, you might opt to watch the market upheaval from a distance,

I DON’T KNOW WHEN the coronavirus will stop spreading, when we’ll have a vaccine and how much the economy will slow. I also don’t know at what level the stock market and interest rates will hit bottom—or whether we’ve already seen the worst. And nobody else does, either. But that doesn’t mean we should all just sit on our (frequently washed) hands.
While we don’t know how bad things will get, we’ve seen this movie before.

WHEN YOU SEE an advertisement, you expect some hype. Ads for investment newsletters are, alas, no exception.
Sometimes, you hear about their unique investment process or how the newsletter regularly beats the market. Some offer one-sentence testimonials from happy subscribers. The message: You, too, can enjoy the benefits of their secret methodologies for a low, low price.
Yes, the ads are undoubtedly compelling. But you need to separate the hype from reality. Fortunately, Hulbert Financial Digest does just that—by tracking the performance of investment newsletters.

STOCKS HAVE YET TO close 20% below their Feb. 19 all-time high, so technically the U.S. market hasn’t entered bear market territory. Still, after this morning’s sharp drop, the S&P 500 is 17% below its peak.
If this decline does indeed become a bear market, how can you prepare yourself? A bear market can be an emotionally gut-wrenching time—one that leaves you feeling vulnerable and helpless. But there are steps you can take to limit the damage to your investment portfolio.

WHAT I FIND surprising about the stock market isn’t its recent dramatic pullback, but how I’ve reacted. I simply haven’t paid much attention. It’s just been business as usual. I haven’t even looked at my portfolio or watched CNBC.
Such a calm demeanor is unusual for me. A few years ago, if I experienced this type of market decline, I would have made big changes to my portfolio. Yet this time around, I just shrugged my shoulders.

IT’S COME TO THIS: I’m writing an article discussing the virtues of EE savings bonds. To be sure, I’m not currently planning to buy them myself. But they could make a fine investment for more conservative investors who are happy to sit tight for the next two decades.
Yes, the current yield on EE savings bonds is a mere 0.1%. But if you hold EEs for 20 years, the Treasury Department guarantees that your savings bonds will double in value,

MY THREE FAVORITE words in response to questions about investing and trading: “I don’t know.”
Nothing underscores that sentiment more than bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I work on a trading floor, where it pays to have an opinion on just about every tradable asset. But I’m the oddball on the floor. I roll my eyes when I hear blanket market predictions and the latest hot stock tip. I’m even on a personal crusade to remove CNBC from the TVs at work.

AFTER YEARS OF handwringing, you finally concede that it’s all but impossible to beat the market over the long haul, so you shift your portfolio into index funds. Next up: the truly tough decisions.
Almost every writer for—and reader of—HumbleDollar is a fan of indexing, and there’s no doubt that index funds are a wonderful financial tool. But how will you use that tool? Let the bickering begin.
The differences of opinion show up among the articles we run on HumbleDollar.

IT’S NO SECRET THAT mutual fund costs are critically important. In fact, when it comes to the performance of funds in the same category, they’re the single most important differentiator. In the words of Morningstar, the investment research firm, “If there’s anything in the whole world of mutual funds that you can take to the bank, it’s that expense ratios help you make a better decision.”
But how do you go about totaling up a mutual fund’s costs?

CNBC ANCHOR BECKY Quick recently summed up today’s retirement investing dilemma in one sentence: “You’re never going to make enough money if you have 40% of your money in bonds.” She, along with many pundits, believe the old standby recommendation to invest 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds—the classic balanced portfolio—is dead. Google “60/40 asset allocation” and the majority of recent articles have titles that include such words as “eulogy,” “endangered,” “dead,” “the end of” and “not good enough.”
Likewise,

“PERFORMANCE COMES and goes, but costs roll on forever,” said Vanguard Group’s founder, the great John Bogle. It’s been just over a year since Jack passed away.
I think he would have approved of Vanguard’s recent announcements that it had reduced fees on 56 funds and eliminated trading commissions to buy and sell stocks and ETFs. The latter followed similar announcements from other major discount brokers. All of this is good news—especially right now.