WHEN I WENT TO THE grocery store last week, it was packed with customers stocking up on essentials. Carts were filled with items that people couldn’t possibly consume in any reasonable period of time. It’s a scene that’s been repeated across the country.
A friend told me: “When people panic, they want things right away. When people see other people panic, they panic, too.” Like the coronavirus, fear is highly contagious.
I’m not panicking,

“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.

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.

WHILE JIM AND I cooked dinner the other night, we talked about the old cars we drove when we were younger—and how they tended to pull to one side if we took our hands off the steering wheel. We humans have a similar tendency: We head in one direction unless we make a conscious effort to be more rational.
That brings me to the coronavirus and accompanying stock market plunge. We all have gut reactions to news like this.

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.

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.

IS THE STOCK MARKET swoon messing with your head? You don’t want to make this market decline any worse than it has to be. To that end, here are 10 steps that’ll help preserve your sanity and your portfolio:

Avoid touching both your face and leveraged exchange-traded index funds.
Change the password on your investment accounts to “ItsTooLateToSell.”
Downgrade your opinion of investors based on their degree of hysteria.
Don’t watch Contagion,

RETIREMENT ISN’T JUST about reaching some magic savings number. You also need a strategy for turning that pile of savings into a reliable stream of retirement income that’ll last for the rest of your life.
In academic lingo, it’s about changing from accumulation to decumulation—and it’s a topic that my husband Jim and I grapple with, as we figure out how best to cover our retirement expenses. There are three common strategies:
Systematic withdrawals.

I’VE DEVELOPED a series of what I call “Geico talks,” named after the ubiquitous insurance company commercials. They’re 15-minute talks that, I joke, are aimed at boosting financial knowledge by 15% or more.
The talks are for friends and acquaintances who work at the same company as me or at companies with similar employee benefits. These firms typically have great retirement plans and many employees own company stock. I figured the topics I’d researched for my own finances would help these folks.

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.

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,