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Unfortunately for many people, the market is "down" and is a bear market. People are receiving statements that show substantial losses---over $100,000---in retirement and other accounts. What happened to the money? The broker will always respond: "Markets go up and markets go down; it is just the market." But there is more to it than that. Of course, the markets go up and down. Isn't that why you went to a broker in the first place? To have some chance at the up and to protect risk down? This is the time where two big wrongs done by too many brokers are revealed, like the fog lifting over the shoreline. The fog lifts and the broker's LACK of DIVERSIFICATION is shown. Not every investment is down, and some not as far as others. If money is diversified, it doesn't all go down. The other big wrong which is shown in a bear market is the lack of placing stop losses. So many brokers reassure customers, oh, we will watch the investments, we won't let them go down too much, we will put in the stop losses. But rarely does the broker actually follow through, get all the information needed to have a stop loss order placed, so losses stop at whatever is selected, say 10%, rather than the 40, 50, even 80% which we are seeing.
Don't let the calming words of the broker fog the two big wrongs of LACK of DIVERSIFICATION and LACK of STOP LOSS ORDERS.
