I look at it from the standpoint that I am buying stocks at a cheaper price now because I won't need to sell any until I retire in 20 years. I'm also comfortable with my asset allocation which has 120 minus my age in bonds. I know several people that sold after the crash of 08/09 that still have not waded back into the market. There is actually one that just did a couple months ago and got stung again with losses without getting any of the gains the past 6 years!
the sound bites from cheerleader investment guys (they have to be) talk about the buy-low opportunities a lot, with little mention of other investment fundamentals -such as diversifying. History shows that some investments go bad, and never come back. If your China Emerging Market stock fund is worth half what it once was, it may still get worse. No need to stay the course and hang tight there.
For the vast majority (of people, not dollars) with our 401Ks with a mutual fund menu -we really don't have much choice but to stay the course -and should have some semblance of diversification.
Also, the Slide Rule applies - I don't know what I'm talking about.
I like how the narrative is that stocks are "soaring," but while they were up around 400 points earlier in the day, they are now only up 150 points, not much a rebound after the beating it took.
I shifted some money out of one of my mutual fund accounts into a money market account yesterday because I'm relying on it to make some improvements to my house very soon. It would be bad if it declined to the point where I no longer had enough to cover this project and had to come up with the money some other way.