Ask HN: How to deal with markets down turn? Feeling down

All this is good advice, but I haven't seen any prospective on personal budgets:

- Remember that money exists to be spent on useful things, it's not a video game score

- Understand your monthly spending and monthly take-home. If you're in a role that grants equity, I bet you've got a healthy surplus. If not, I bet you could make some lifestyle changes to achieve that.

- Take a moment to really accept that you are fine. You are not in danger, and shouldn't carry a fight or flight anxiety.

- Then think about your future. Can't sugarcoat it, you might have had more vacations or whatever if your options didn't decline, but I bet that you can chart a course to a decent retirement. Use an online calculator. Again, your future is fine. Not great, but fine.

- Think about what your future looked like when you graduated high school (or equivalent, wherever you did it). Did it definitely include being rich? If not, then you have lost nothing relative to that. And it's possible that on this company, the next one, or the one after that, you'll end up there anyway.

- Finally, spend a little money on something you like, and cut a little money on something you hadn't gotten around to canceling (streaming service, routine meals out, etc) You have so much control over your life.

Sorry that this happened. You're not alone feeling this way.

I have lost about 95% of my liquid net worth this year, due to hubris, basically. The first half of 2022 for me was waking up every morning and feeling like puking a little as I get more under water, closer to that margin call, plunging through my stops.

After almost a year of this, I have found a perspective that is helpful for me and may be helpful for you.

It is my firm belief that you are meant to learn certain things in life, and your subconscious very carefully and meticulously arranges your life circumstances to learn these things. This is why you often find yourself shaking your head and saying "I got myself into this".

It may be different for you, but I have realized that the thing I needed to learn is that my net worth is not my self-worth. I realized that I've desperately been trying to make money my whole life so that people will like me and I can avoid the pain that I saw caused by poverty when I grew up.

I have been blessed to have money and realize that neither one of those things are true, and then I guess I have been blessed to be tested on what I learned the first time around by losing it.

I have also come to realize that I don't need all that much money to live a comfortable life.

These are the things that I learned. They may not be what you are intended to learn.

So, take it easy on yourself. What happened may have been completely out of your control, or it might have been something that you contributed to. Either way, it's done.

Take some time to feel shitty, because you will, but consider changing perspectives and start looking at what you can learn from this and maybe even what opportunities have opened up because of it.

Fidelity did a survey of thier customers whose 401k did the best over the years. The most popular response (about 1/3) was 'I don't have a 401k at fidelity'. They had forgotten about it and left it alone to grow through good and bad. If you know how your investments are doing you know too much

My perspective is a bit different since I don't have stock options, just plain retirement and such. So, take this with that in mind.

I would recommend giving yourself a break from following it. My reasons for not looking are these: Values of assets change a ton day-to-day, and a year or two from now who knows what it will look like! I also don't have any control over prices. I could shuffle assets around, but again I don't know what will happen a few years from now. So, I don't gain much by looking at the numbers often.

Sorry it's a stressful sad time for you though. It does suck!

> Market is collapsing.

If you are not retired, then markets being down are a good thing, because everything is "on sale" / at 'discounted' prices. At least for the US† (S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russel 2000), the historical 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year returns after a 25% drop are quite good:

* https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/10/getting-long-term-b...

If you've been foolish enough to cash out—which should really never been done by 'retail investors':

* https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market...

You should really start making regular contributions to get back in. You should always be fully invested: having cash on the side long-term is generally not a good investment. Even if you new ahead of time when the dips in the market would occur—which is impossible—it's still better to do regular contributions:

* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/even-god-couldnt-beat-dollar-co...

If you try to be clever and skip the worst days in the market, you also tend miss the best days:

* https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2019/02/08/miss-the-worst-...

At the end of the, there is only one piece of advice that average retail investors (saving for retirement) should follow:

* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/just-keep-buying/

As for myself: I have no idea if I'm down, or by how much, since I haven't logged into my brokerage/trading account since January when I topped it up for the new year; almost all of my investments are automated so I don't need to see/touch things. I have several decades until retirement, so why worry about what happens of the course of a single year?

† I'm in Canada.

Are you in Europe or the States? The two areas have vastly different economic outlooks.

The outlook in the US can best be described as "uncertain". Valuations are down because the market doesn't like uncertainty, but it doesn't necessarily translate into a future recession -- many of the economic indicators in the US are very positive.

OTOH, Europe is facing a hard winter unless an energy miracle appears.

The market is down 20% on the year, so that means that a lot of people are underwater on their options, so that the fact that yours still has some value means that you are doing better than many.

Make sure you are personally prepared if you get laid off. Have enough cash on hand to cover 6 months of expenses.

Accept downturns are a part of life and are overall a good thing. Every bull market accumulates cruft (NFTs, ahem), and a downturn helps clear that out for the next bull market.

Downturns can be a fantastic time to buy. The old adage is to buy low and sell high. S&P 500 is down 25% this year. If you believe (as I do) it will more than recover, then if you buy today, you will earn more than 25% return when it does.

Lastly if your stock options are hit more than market, assuming you believe in long term health of business, that probably means they will recover more once market recovers. Tech stocks are getting unfairly punished now because of tampered growth expectations. Don’t sell them. Let them vest and ride. In fact buy more if you can (see point above).

Perspective. Rather than spend the day looking at your portfolio, go outside, take a drive, amd volunteer or even just have a few conversations with those less fortunate than you. Folks that don't have investments, 401ks, but are still beautiful humans. Perspective will help you tp see what you have, not the small percentage you are loosing.

Be aware that:

1) we're likely in a declining/sideways market for at least another year until inflation subsides, possibly longer

2) the Fed has most of the control over the inflation/deflation levers (on demand side)

3) markets will most likely recover over the long term, historically speaking

The Fed is purposefully reducing their asset holdings and increasing interest rates to slow down demand, which in theory should cool inflation. Once the economy cools enough, they will "flip the switch" back on to supporting markets by reducing interest rates, at which point #3 should begin. Educate yourself on the Fed and their impact on markets.

So if you sell at the lows, you're accepting the losses, can move on and invest again later. If you can afford to hold through this bear market, you may recover some of your losses on a longer timeframe. You can also position your portfolio with some downside protection (e.g long dated put options on indexes, selling covered calls on your stocks etc) to reduce the pain, you don't have to just watch your portfolio decline.

This was in the NPR recently [1]. It has a good perspective: just like jump ups in your portfolio aren't worth anything until you cash out, drops aren't losses until you cash out.

Or the Warren Buffett philosophy[2] is, don't make a number be the source of your happiness or sadness. Play with your kids, enjoy life, even if that number is horrible, will you be fine? Probably yes...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/28/1125656030/the-markets-are-do... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/warren-buffett-doubling-your...

My stock options have gone to basically zero twice in my career. It's OK. I knew going in they were gambles on companies I wasn't sure would take off, and I made sure I still had a decent salary from those companies. I also got a LOT out of those companies in experience.

You don't have to buy options that are underwater, or that you're not sure will go back up. You might choose to buy some anyway for Reasons (in both my cases I did do modest purchases, and nothing has come of them), or you might decide to go put your money elsewhere.

My advice to you: particularly if it's early in your career, don't put all your eggs in one basket, and don't have only one iron in the fire. Find other ways to squirrel money away. Diversify your holdings over time. Consider all the investment vehicles your company may offer: US companies I've worked for also offer ESPP, 401(k) contributions and matching, and RSUs (which unlike options are actual shares given to you), for example.

Finally, go talk to a financial advisor if you haven't already and come up with a long-term plan that makes sense to you. That should give you some peace of mind!

From dust you come and to dust will you return.

There’s only two prices to worry about, the price you buy and the price you sell.

In times of economic downturn there’s opportunity. That’s exciting.

I suggest reading a really good book, or if you're feeling ambitious perhaps you could start writing a really good one.

1st world problems, man. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen to get some perspective. Also scientifically proven to lift your spirits.

I am not a financial advisor, but I think markets are far from bottoming out. NASDAQ touched the resistance line, if it breaks it, we will go down even more.

I also have multiple stocks that are >50% down, but if the fundamentals of the company has not changed since you invested when the price was higher, why not to buy it cheaper with discount to DCA.

As for me, in this market turmoil I just keep saving cash for the bottom and put small sums to DCA in my current positions, as I think it is a great opportunity to buy for the long hold.

Just try no to look at our portfolio every hour, because it will no change everything the less you look, the calmer you will be.

If you want to pick stocks, and not just use a roboadvisor like betterment or wealthfront you have to understand that the market does not always go up. This means you have to have a bear market strategy and know when to switch modes from bull to bear by watching and deeply understanding the federal reserve. Otherwise, just give up and use a roboadvisor.

In my case, I sold my tech portfolio when it was clear we were in a bear market when the war broke out and inflation was roaring. There's a reason people spend crazy amounts of time analyzing the fed. When they start raising rates a lot, like 75 basis points, the market WILL crash.

I then started playing around with swing trading energy and monkeypox stocks and options and I'm now a little ahead of break even for the year. Generally government spending (monkeypox) and whatever is driving the inflation (energy) does well in an inflationary depression, which is what we're in. You have to watch the news though to see if monkeypox is a dud or if opec is going to throw a tantrum in response to world events, like when probably the U.S starts destroying energy infrastructure.

Sure, swing trading is short term capital gains, but the key to investing is DON'T LOSE MONEY. You can only use $3000 in losses a year, so losing money in the stock market is double bad.

I will eventually become a bull again when the fed decides to start lowering rates. Permabears are just as big of stock market losers as permabulls.

The market is really not collapsing.

A longer-term perspective might help ease your short-term emotional swing… see longer-term asset class graphs at https://totalrealreturns.com (my side project)

Options are leverage. If you can’t handle the levered-up volatility, reduce your leverage.

You live on. This won’t be the first nor the last time it will happen.

This time will prepare you for the next one where you can buy at a discount to build wealth faster.

Without any context on the poster (age, net worth, career status, etc) it's not possible to say anything concrete.

So I'll just speculate. Perhaps the poster is young enough to have entered professsional life after the 2008 crash. If so, they have only experienced a bull market going mostly only up with minor blips. But that's not normal, markets also crash and also sometimes meander down for a long while. Don't ever be invested in a way that such an event will be catastrophic to you.

The dot.com crash turned my ~$1M into about 20K. At least they were options, so wasn't money I really ever had in my hand, but it was still a bummer.

The money is gone but you have a lot of qualities, you can learn from this valuable lesson and do better in the future. For example, I know someone who buys companies that have 20 years of consistent profits. He is down 9% this year, but fell far behind people who were making money from technology stocks in the boom times. He only looks at his stocks every 3 months and worries about nothing.

In one of the Market Wizards books, an investor said that if he cannot sleep from worrying about his positions, he sells them until he is comfortable.

If your company is granting you call options, all your new ones will be at lower prices and they may even lower the strike prices on the old ones to retain good employees. Try to get investments that are not correlated with the success of your company or industry or where you own property.

The boss that hired me 15 years ago told me to save 20% of my take home income and invest it in quality companies with consistent earnings. He later retired at 55. Cut your costs, pay off your debts and lower your personal overhead, so that you are more resilient if you have to switch jobs or earn less money.

Timing the market over the long term is very difficult and it is better to assume you cannot. It has been known for decades that if you miss a couple dozen up days because you were flat or short the market, your returns over decades are much lower. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-missing-out-on-25-days...

If you are going to buy stocks or an index like the S&P 500, take a look at 50 years of data and see how bad the top 10 declines were and how long it took for those investments to reach new highs. The stocks I own have gone down 50% previously and I assume they could top that with a 60-70% decline. The worst time it took almost 3 years to get back to new highs. Once you know that about your investments, you can rest easier.

Look for chances to buy quality companies so you do well when profits improve. You have all your valuable skills, you know more now and will do better in the future.

Are those stock options for a public company? If not, I don't know if this would cheer you up or not, but you should have assumed they're worth zero anyways.

With respect to the market it goes up and it goes down. If you have a good portfolio and you're invested for the long term just ignore it. To help you feel better look at how quickly the market recovered in the dot com bust, and in 2009. Keep dollar cost averaging. Never put any money into the market you might need in the short or medium term, stocks are for long term investment.

If you bought options your base case should be that they expire worthless, except some very special cases. If you sold options your likely case should be extreme loss, exceeding the premium in double digit multiples.

If you don't know this then you shouldn't have traded, and were misinformed. They're considered complex instruments for a reason, and the ease with which the masses trade them is something of a tragedy.

This has happened multiple times in the past and will happen many times again, as there's nothing new under the sun (from Livermore, one of the greatest speculators).

A fun little book that I like to recommend: "Confusion of confusions". It was written by a Jewish trader working with the 1600s Amsterdam stock and bond exchanges. It is a good proof of how little things have changed, you'll understand pretty much everything once you map the terms and concepts to their modern equivalents.

Another way of framing it: you can now buy a bunch of stocks at a 90% discount :)

Of what little I have in my Fidelity account, literally everything's in the red (except, weirdly enough, the single AMC share I own). Doesn't bother me too much; just means I can get more bang for my buck right now. At some point that'll flip around (with inflation the way it is, there's certainly some investments that'll depreciate slower than the dollar over the next decade or so), so even if we ain't at the bottom of the market yet, I feel like now is the time to be squirreling away bits of pocket change here and there.

The sun is setting, and the night will be long and dark, but at some point the sun will rise, and now's the time to prepare for it.

...that, or it'll prematurely supernova, at which point stock prices would probably be among the least of our concerns.

You crying over money you never had. I’ve been on this ride a few times. I’ve learned that it’s not real money until you can (and do) cash it out. It’s intoxicating to think about your imminent ability to retire, but the mistake is allowing yourself to become intoxicated in the first place.

A similar thing happened at Netflix in 2011. My coworker kept buying options and I stopped. His stock grew to $34M. Mine recovered to six figures.

If you can buy more, and you have confidence in the company, that’s what I would do.

Based on my understanding of you’ve said, you are down bad on holdings (on paper) as I’m sure most all of us are but are you in need of liquidity (cash)? If not then it really doesn’t matter. Try to focus on what you need to survive/live and let markets do what markets do.

Eventually markets will stabilize/return to previous levels at least historically speaking.

If you are in need of liquidity you could look to sell your current (even your future, yet to be vested holdings) but I’d recommend sitting on your hands unless you are an active investor or in dire need of liquidity.

- down 30%+ on paper

You only lose if you sell.

If you still feel like investing, then just continue. It's called dollar cost averaging. The modern term would be buying the dip. Also you could save cash and wait till you think the market has bottomed. Now some stuff has crashed more than others. You could find new opportunities which are really undervalued in these markets. A lot of the weighting has changed. So what I'm saying is, nothing stops you from continuing. You may lost a round but not the game.

Diversify asset classes. When you do have the chance to exercise stock options, do - to a basket of stocks (like a total market ETF) and other assets (such as bonds, cds, notes).

What does deal with mean here? Deal with as in how to...

... recognise and learn from the mistakes in your investing strategy?

... reorganise a life based on having less money?

... deal with the emotional turmoil of losing lots of money?

... deal with the emotional turmoil of uncertainty?

... cope with facing an imminent retirement where you don't have the funds to live comfortably?

This post isn't really answerable because it is too vague. Even as a comment on hard times, there isn't much to go on here.

If you're worried about stock options and other Corpo nonsense to such a point if affects your general wellbeing - get some perspective. You're still the top 0.0001% of humans whom even have the opportunity, and you're still not happy.

You've got limited time left to live, do something more meaningful and you won't be worrying about stocks into your 70's.

So sorry this happened. Can’t help you feel better other than to say you are not alone. I didn’t suffer as much as you. I went more conservative, or so I thought, and went heavy into bonds, which most 30% over the past year. I guess the moral of the story is stay diversified, and if every asset class goes down, well, we all lose together. Misery loves company.

Find some psychedelic drugs and take them with friends in a fun environment. Afterwards you won’t care about the market ever again.

Know that relative to previous events it is possible for a much larger drop. Be mentally prepared. Stick to your plan. If buy and hold is your plan you should already know that it routinely has 30% drops for months or years at a time. If you have all your money in one company stock then your plan could use some diversification.

If you speculate, you need to be ready for such massive swings. I just drip buy/sell as the market goes down/up.

Markets go down and up. Your money isn't real till you cash it out, and it's unhealthy to let short term changes in headline numbers control your emotional reaction - positive or negative.

Your focus on the short term is causing the issue here, so try to move on from that.

Stop watching the markets, stop reading the news, do something fun and engaging. This is the best advice you'll get (which is why so many people are giving it). If you're serious about feeling better, please take this advice.

Remember that the only number that really matters in terms of your bank account is 0. As long as you can hold off 0, you are doing fine. A lot of other people are in the same boat.

Otherwise, you don't need to look at the value of your options.

I’ve never had stock options in the first place if that makes you feel any better.

Hey I can related, my stock options have a similar value, but we have to think that is temporary the market goes up and down with time. Also I recommend you looking into Stoic philosophy it helps a lot on these times.

doesn't take paragraphs to explain this. you invest better by remaining emotionally attached from your investments. if you've invested well over the past 5 or so years you should be sitting on a nice pile of cash. spend it. the dollar is strong, inflation is at an incredibly high level. don't just waste it all, treat yourself to something nice. if you haven't been invested over the past few years, you should devise a plan for doing so as a bear market/market downturns are the best times to invest.

If the value shrinked 90% and you're not buying tons of shares of this company (or negotiating more shares instead of $ if it's a private company), it means it was all bullshit to begin with.

Is this your first rodeo?

According to the Buddhist doctrine, thinking of temporal things as if they were permanent is the chief source of human suffering. Certainly it does apply to economic growth.

There's nothing wrong with the markets being down. It means the dollar is up? It's perhaps a good time to buy. The problem is with your bets being wrong.

You can get a 6-month T-bill right now at 4.07% That’s how.

If you are young enough you can expect this same thing to happen several times throughout your life. Will you feel the same every time?

Welcome to 99% of the population that don't get stock options and still make less than your base salary...

I continue investing a large amount of my pay, just like I always do. The markets will recover.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having such a bad time at the casino.

What is the difference between 'invest' and 'gamble'?

As long as you don’t sell you haven’t lost. Could recover in the next 2-3 years. Stock market is a risky investment. Own it and move on. Take responsibility for it and don’t feel bad. Brush it off as a loss. It is what it is - you took a risk at the end of the day.

Learn from your mistakes.

Proceed immediately to bogleheads.org. It is the way.

Take a job that doesn't issue options?

advice given me during the dot-com boom at the end of the 90s

"the important thing about options is that they should be 2-ply"

chill out man, if you earned it, and lost it, you can earn it again.

in the mean time take a time off, focus on your basic needs.

Well, I got laid off this week, so I win.

Be grateful for having any stocks.

Most of my stocks are down 50 to 80%

first time? don't worry it's only money

that's the name of the game =) buckle up, kiddo! we're in for a fun ride ;)

Good time to buy. 90% loss seems severe, possibly also good time to change employer (which is also essentially buying the dip - you get $N of RSU at the low valuation)

I will never forget the words of a previous tenant of mine. The profile is silicon valley worker, remote outside the us due to the pandemic, total “comp” 500k: “i dont invest in real estate because its too much hassle and i made my money on the stock market with shares earned from my employer”. Fast forward to the onset of the market crash, my real estate sold, his “portfolio” down one million. I feel sorry for him but i am glad i went the only way that can’t fail (unless there’s excessive taxation): real estate. You dont get rich but boy am i doing fine.

Getting back to your question, i’d wait it out. Markets go up and down all the time.

In January 2021 the market seemed overheated so I mostly cashed out, and sold a lot of my 401K stock, putting it into safer assets.

From May to September as tech indexes got cheaper I began buying them up in my rollover IRA. Two and a half weeks ago I started loading up on tech indexes with my spare liquid assets - I am down about 2.3% on that right now.

I still have some spare liquid assets, but it's easily possible the market can go down more. IYW is down over 35% YTD, IGV is down 34.71% YTD. Then again, if conditions are rosy, you're not going to get to buy Google, Salesforce etc. at such discounts off their highs.

The price of tech stocks has been too high for me for a long time, so I have had a lot of cash. The past two and a half weeks I piled most of my spare liquid cash into the market. I still have a little bit more I can put in, but more than that and I start tapping into my rainy day fund. Any how, I don't think I would buy more on a small dip at this point, it would have to be a bigger dip for me to buy more tech indexes now.

I don't even like buying stocks, but it's hard to resist buying the tech stocks at such a discount off their peak at the end of last year.