When the Market Crashes

The market will crash during your investing lifetime. Your balance will drop 30% or more someday, and every instinct will scream at you to sell and hide in cash.

That panic-selling is where most investors lose. Selling in a crash locks in the loss and, worse, takes you out of the recovery that usually follows. The fix is simple and boring: keep your automatic investments running and don't check your balance every day.

A crash is a discount, not a disaster. The dollars you add while prices are low buy more shares — and those shares do the heaviest lifting when the snowball starts rolling again.