“WHAT CHANGES HAVE you made to your portfolio during this market decline?” That was the article request I received from HumbleDollar’s editor. Initially, I had reservations about taking on the assignment, afraid that my story would be misinterpreted as giving financial advice. What follows isn’t financial advice, but rather a highly personal account of one investor’s approach.
I’ve been quite cautious for the past few years. Written into my investment policy statement is Benjamin Graham’s advice to have between 25% and 75% of one’s portfolio in stocks.

WHAT IN THE WORLD is happening in the stock market? The short answer: Investors are spooked by a supply and demand conundrum. Markets react very negatively to a significant disruption of either.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, stock markets plummeted because of a disruption in demand. In the weeks and months that followed 9/11, factories, businesses and services remained open and operating all over the world. The issue wasn’t a lack of supply.

I WRITE THIS FROM somewhere in the Atlantic. We’re headed toward the Falkland Islands, where we’ll apparently see penguins. My wife and I booked this cruise months ago. Since then, of course, we’ve been told repeatedly that being on a ship for 30 days with mostly 60- to 80-somethings is not the best idea. Who knew?
There was a time when getting away meant little connection to the outside world. No more.

I FIRST STARTED managing mutual funds a few months before the 1987 stock market crash, and I’ve had to navigate a fair number of market declines since then. My advice: Instead of worrying about how far share prices will fall or how widely the coronavirus will spread, think about the opportunities. I spy four of them.
1. Buy the dip. If you have cash, you might slowly dollar-cost average into the market,

“HOW BAD WILL IT get—and how long will it last?” In my last article, I mentioned that many people had asked me those two questions. This past week, amid the continuing stock market tumult, some folks have been raising a third question: “Should I even bother investing in the stock market? It just seems crazy.”
It’s a fair question. On Monday, the market was up 4%, before dropping 3% on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it was up 4% again,

WE HAVE MUCH TO learn about the coronavirus, but we already know a great deal about financial risk—and, indeed, recent weeks have offered a brutal refresher course. What insights can we draw from investors’ reaction to this awful epidemic? Here are eight timeless lessons:
1. The greatest risks are those we never see coming.
Some risks are predictable, such as stock market volatility. Others are less probable but widely known, like the possibility of a recession.

MY LAST JOB IN mainstream journalism was in 24-hour TV news. When a big story broke, we dropped everything. The viewers, we were told, were only interested in one story. Today that story is COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus. Next week—perhaps even tomorrow—it could be something completely different.
Human beings are finely attuned to what we see as immediate threats. It’s how we evolved. But it isn’t always helpful. The reality: The chances of any of us catching the coronavirus,

I’M STRUCK BY HOW calmly I’m taking this fast-and-furious coronavirus selloff. The human toll is getting worse every day, and the economic and other consequences could be catastrophic. But I’m not tempted to sell. I’m also not in a hurry to buy the dip, though admittedly my pulse quickened Friday afternoon when the market was down 15% from its Feb. 19 high.
There’s absolutely no way to know what will happen first: Whether I’ll regret not buying the dip or Dustin Hoffman will knock on my door in a biohazard suit.

AMID THE PAST WEEK’S stock market downturn, many people are asking two questions:
“How bad will it get?”
“How long will it last?”
I can’t answer these two questions, and nor can anybody else. But I have an answer to a third question: “What should I do?” Below are seven thoughts:
1. Ask financial advisors what they recommend at a time like this and most will offer the same advice: “Don’t panic.” While I agree,

AS A TEENAGER, I started to invest by buying a boring old target-date retirement fund. But from there, I became an avid watcher of CNBC while studying finance in college. Indeed, my first financial love was technical analysis. Even today, when markets turn volatile, I’m as susceptible as the next investor to turning on financial cable TV to check out the supposed carnage.
Still, as time has worn on, my perspective has grown longer term and away from day-to-day market movements.

IMAGINE COVID-19 caused the U.S. economy to shrink 4%. What sort of drop in share prices might this trigger?
As it happens, we already know the answer. Over the 18 months through mid-2009, U.S. inflation-adjusted GDP slipped 4%. Investors—panicked over what the future might bring—drove down the S&P 500 stocks by a jaw-dropping 57%.
In retrospect, this seems like a bit of an overreaction.
To be sure, late 2008 was a wild time. It felt like the global financial system was on the verge of total collapse.

“FOLLOWING THE market’s recent banner year, should we just sell everything and get out?” I got that question recently, and it’s entirely understandable. Since hitting bottom in 2009, U.S. share prices are up fivefold, including the S&P 500’s 31.5% total return in 2019. 
Individual investors aren’t alone in asking this question. A few weeks back, at an industry conference, James Montier delivered a presentation in which he compared the U.S. stock market to “Wile E.

A NATIVE CHICAGOAN, I bailed out and am now a Southerner. Or at least a Florida Man. So I attend church each Sunday. If you attend church in the south, you will inevitably hear someone respond to a “how are ya?” with “well, I just keep on keepin’ on.”
With all the fanfare about this bull market, and especially large-cap technology stocks, it can be tough to keep on keepin’ on and stick to your long-term plan.

THE JAPANESE JUST “celebrated” the 30th anniversary of their stock market’s peak. The Nikkei 225 hit an all-time high of 38,916 in December 1989. Today, it stands at 23,320, or 40% below 1989’s level.
“But the Japanese stock market in the 1980s was the mother of all bubbles,” you might respond. Perhaps. But what about the Nasdaq bubble of the late ’90s? True, the Nasdaq Composite Index has finally returned to its 2000 peak.

IT’S THAT TIME OF year again—when magazine editors put on their Nostradamus hats to offer up get-rich-quick schemes for the new year. “What China’s Best Investor is Buying Now,” reads the cover of Fortune, along with “40 Stocks for the New Decade.” The magazine even praises perennially unpopular Goldman Sachs. “Not your father’s vampire squid,” Fortune says.
These kinds of headlines seem comical, but it turns out they may be good for more than just entertainment.