I just looked at IBD’s web site, and there’s an article about how it’s better to stay in the market and ride the lows so you don’t miss out on the “best days” of the market. I don’t think my nerves can handle that right now because I don’t think this is a typical downturn. But I was wondering, if a person sells their holdings and puts the money into cash when their loss is say 20%, and the market goes down 40%, then the person buys back in before the prices reach the prices they sold at, isn’t the person still ahead?
My daughter pointed that one out to me; it was in the mutual funds section and we immediately put part of an IRA into an S&P index fund. Since then we've watched it loose money for us but mutual funds are not like stocks; they're more of a 'buy-and-hold' type investment while a stock is a 'dump-it-if-it-drops' type so we're OK with it....