Tips for Surviving a Shaky Stock Market

photo credit: James & Vilija

Most stock market investors in the United States are not really happy these days. But CNN Money has come up with a long list of 21 actions to take to make lemonade out of the lemons they’re getting from the stock market at the moment. Some of the highlights include these tips:

• Spend time you’d normally spend trading learning about how to trade better instead - read some great investing books and do some research online
• Get some tax write-offs by selling off some of your losses - but check the tax implications precisely
• Sell off your energy stocks while they’re at a high, and before they start to fall
• Ensure that your investing expenses are as low as possible - if you’re moving money around, make sure it’s to funds with the lowest possible fees, for example
• Swap some of your shares into more conservative stocks - they call it “tweaking your portfolio”
• Be extra aware of the danger of scams - scammers love to take advantage of people’s anxieties in economic conditions like those we’re experiencing now; the same goes for unscrupulous salesmen
• Move money out of government bond investment, because high demand has pushed down yields on these
• Make an effort to save more, knowing that it’s a short-term necessity