General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I Lost $7,000 Today and Trump is Gloating About It [View all]IronLionZion
(45,447 posts)which I would encourage everyone to read up on the basics of investing. But for most Americans, it is best to just invest in a broadly diversified index fun and continue to put more in automatically from every paycheck no matter what the market is doing. It's best to not even think about the market.
That includes people who were retiring during the 2008 market crash. They would have made it back in a few years if they minimized what stocks they sold, had a large percentage in bonds (which any elderly person should), relied on social security, and lived very frugally as the markets came back up and beyond.
If they had the knowledge to stick their money into a target retirement date fund, then the fund's managers would have been shifting more investments from high-risk to low-risk every few years as they got older and closer to retirement. That would minimize losses during a crash.