Panic selling during market crashes can cost you millions and take decades to recover from. An investor who held $500,000 through 2008 saw it grow to $940,000 by 2014. The difference between success and failure isn't predicting downturns, it's staying invested when they happen.
The market keeps going down. What are you going to do? Eventually, many people snap. Many people give up the values that they held dearest and it cost them millions. A costly mistake that often takes decades to recover from. Often you can never recover from it. For example, if an investor had $500,000 in the market in 2008 and they simply held on through the crisis without selling,, they would have seen it grow to about $940,000 by 2014, almost doubling their money despite enduring one of the worst financial crises in modern history. That's why the average individual investor has horrible returns compared to a simple index fund. So the real question isn't if another downturn is coming, it's whether you will be ready.
