A BEAR MARKET CHECK LIST

Written By: Tom Hankes  |  Posted: Saturday, February 27th, 2016

I cringe when I hear someone say, "I'm going to play the market," as if investing were a friendly game of scrabble. No, dear reader, it's real money which you and your family need, and that money tends to leak out fast. Conditions are ripe for a very steep adjustment to market prices which will likely last many years. Many investors (gamblers) are muttering to themselves: "I think I can eke out another two or three percent before I move to cash." The correct attitude should be: "Great! I've got market gains of 80-100% above historically reasonable values, I think I'm going to get out and be very pleased." These markets have been very kind to you and provided dozens, if not hundreds, of warnings over many months: a downturn of 12.5% in August, a sharp downturn from November to January of 14.5 %, a record drop in shipping prices, a tremendous drop in oil prices, thousands of store closings, layoffs, revenue "misses" etc.

Here are some thoughts worth considering: They are somewhat redundant from previous articles, but I want to accommodate new readers:

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