I doubt you've seen anyone crying out these popular pieces of bear-market advice of late. Yes, the market has been pretty volatile so far in 2026, but the stock market hasn't even approached a correction, let alone a bear market.

But it's safe to assume you've read these and other pieces of bear-market advice several times over the past few years, likely in between checks to see how far your 401(k) or brokerage account has fallen during steep market drops. I say that because I've written these exact pieces of advice for years at multiple media outlets, and I've watched the likes of CNBC and MarketWatch do the same for even longer. There's simply not a lot of new wisdom as it pertains to dealing with your stocks circling the drain.

But I can also tell you that we often do a poor job of explaining the nuances behind these and other tips. We also sometimes fail to point out how this advice may work for some people while not even being applicable for others.

Here are seven common bear-market tips, with much closer scrutiny as to how helpful it really is, including what each piece of advice tends to overlook, and where exceptions might come into play.

--Correction: This is a technical term that refers to a drop of 10% or more from a high.

--Bear market: This is a technical term that refers to a drop of 20% or more from a high.

--Crash: This is a general term that refers to a rapid and steep drop in prices. There is no specific threshold.

As I write this, we're nowhere close to meeting the criteria for any of these terms, and that's good news. So instead, we're just going to talk about what a bear market could look like in 2026.

The S&P 500's last high was 6,978.6, made on Jan. 27, 2026.

For the U.S. to fall back into a bear market, the S&P 500 needs to close at least 20% down from that level. Thus, we would fall into a bear market if a.) the S&P 500 fell to 5,582.88 or below. If the index plumbed those levels before eclipsing the previous high of 6,978.6, we would say that the official start of the bear market was Jan. 27, 2026.

Everyone generally agrees on that part of the bear market definition. They also agree that the end of a bear market (and the start of a bull market) is when prices hit their lowest point. 

Where they tend to disagree is when the end of a bear market is confirmed. Some would say it's confirmed once the investment has risen 20% off the bear-market low. However, we follow the view that a bear market ends once the investment rebounds all the way past its previous peak. 

So, let's say we do fall into a bear market and the low point occurs on June 1, 2026. We wouldn't be able to confirm that end date for the bear market until the S&P 500 closed back above 6,978.6. At that point, the bear market will have officially ended on June 1, and the new bull market will have officially started on June 1.

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But over a decade of reviewing reader comments and having long discussions with friends and colleagues, I've become increasingly aware that good advice is often repeated in situations where it doesn't actually apply. 

And that's largely our fault. We in the financial media present generalized advice because we're talking to an audience of many thousands of people, and we can't personalize that advice for every last person. But in doing so, we sometimes exclude too much detail, and too much context, and make sweeping recommendations that just don't speak to large swaths of people.

My hope here, then, is to try to make these little pearls of wisdom speak to a few more people today than they did yesterday.

-- Is it helpful advice? Yes, if you have the resources. And that's a big if.

I have joined the rest of the financial media in saying "buy the dip" just about any time the market is down by a significant amount. And every time I've sent it, I've meant it—it's earnest advice.

But it raises a fair retaliatory question: "Buy the dip … with what?"

The general wisdom is to always have a little cash set aside in your portfolio to buy a big dip. But many Americans don't have that much cash to work with in the first place, so they tend to fully invest whatever they can contribute, as soon as they contribute it. That's part of what made the 2020 and 2022 bear markets exceptional: Individual investors have had a lot more gunpowder with which they could participate.

During COVID, millions of Americans received stimulus checks that they didn't necessarily need at the moment, and many of those Americans plowed that money into the stock market. We know that because 2020 and 2021 both saw record-breaking levels of brokerage signups.

Related: Should You Tap Into Retirement Savings After a Layoff?

So in 2020, individual investors were buying the dip with "found" money, leading to a lightning-fast recovery of five months. By 2022, stimulus checks had stopped going out, but Americans' savings were still a lot healthier than they are today—and even then, the recovery took longer than a year that time around.

Today? Years of high inflation forced Americans to dig into their savings, leaving little (if any) cash on the bench to put to work, and we're now mired in a slow-growing economy with a wobbly job market. That means the only way some investors could "buy the dip" is to take out debt (no!) or sell some of their current holdings to buy other assets. 

Yes, you should absolutely review your portfolio to weed out weak holdings and buy what you believe in … but you should do that no matter what the S&P 500 is doing. And during a bear market, that's not money coming off the sidelines. You're selling the dip to buy the dip.

So, yes, if you do happen to keep, say, 5% of your portfolio in cash for a rainy day, well, it's pouring, so have at it! But a lot of people reading this can't buy the dip. That's just the truth.

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-- Is it helpful advice? Yes, but it's often confused with "Don't sell at all."

Again, I've absolutely said this, and I've absolutely meant it. You shouldn't sell in a bear market because you're scared and don't know what to do.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever sell during a bear market. In fact, there are two very good reasons to do so:

1. As mentioned above, you've reviewed your positions and decided that, in this changing financial landscape, your money could be better invested buying "dips" in other stocks, bonds, what have you.

2. You need to pay for your kid's college education from a 529, or you need to withdraw retirement income from a 401(k), individual retirement account (IRA), or other plan.

Indeed, the second part is what makes bear markets so difficult for some investors even if stocks eventually snap back.

If you don't need to sell, you probably shouldn't. A gaggle of studies show that individual investors who try to market-time bear and bull markets largely fail—that they would be better off just buying and holding.

But if you have to pay for your child's tuition, you have extremely little flexibility. You can't tell your kid to wait until the next bull market before they go to college. Thus, chances are you have to draw down that 529. And if you've already watched 20% of the value erode, you might ask yourself whether you can afford to lose any more value. That's a legitimate question, and one that would be poorly answered by any general advice I could throw out here. That's a specific question meant for a financial advisor.

Same goes for retirement. If you're living largely off your 401(k), you still have to withdraw money to live. And as our look at withdrawal strategies shows, bear markets (especially early on in retirement) can have dramatic consequences depending on timing and your particular withdrawal plan. Whether you should adjust your plan based on a bear market is again a question for your financial advisor.

And if you're taking required minimum distributions (RMDs), you don't even have a choice. You must withdraw a specified minimum amount.

Related: What Is FIRE? A Beginner's Guide to the Early Retirement Movement

-- Is it helpful advice? Yes!

During a bull market, your stock performance will almost certainly outpace your bonds, which means if you're trying to keep to, say, a 65%/35% stock/bond mix, at some point you'll have to sell some stocks and buy some bonds.

During a bear market, your stock performance will almost certainly lag your bonds, which means if you're trying to keep that same 65%/35% mix, you'll have to rebalance your portfolio in the opposite way: you'll sell some bonds and buy more stocks.

You could argue that, depending on when in a bear market you do your rebalancing, you might be selling bonds that will continue to go up while buying stocks that might continue to go down. 

But none of us actually know what's going to happen next. And again, market timing typically doesn't work out for us normies. So unless your financial advisor says otherwise, it's best to just stick with the plan.

Related: 8 Best Wealth + Net Worth Tracker Apps [View All Your Assets]

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-- Is it helpful advice? Yes, but it's not particularly helpful in the middle of a bear market.

First up: This is one of the vaguest pieces of advice that we in the financial media dole out. It's true, but it's also a lot more complicated than we make it seem. Should you diversify your portfolio? Sure. How should you diversify your portfolio? Well, that depends on a lot of things. When are you going to retire? How much do you need to retire? Do you grind your teeth anytime you see a loss of more than 1% in the market? Again, how exactly you—you there, reading this!—should diversify is a financial advisor question.

Related: 7 Low- and Minimum-Volatility ETFs for Peace of Mind

But more to the point of this story: Should you diversify your portfolio during a bear market?

I guess "better late than never," but portfolio diversification is really meant to limit bear-market losses before they happen, not while they're happening. 

If the market is down 20% but all of your money was plowed into one stock that's down 50%, sure, it's still smart to diversify what capital you have left, but a lot of damage has already been done. 

And on the off chance that all your money was plowed into a stock that's up 50% in a bear market? Sure, you should probably count your lucky stars and diversify. But if you're up 50% in a bear market, it's going to be a lot more difficult for me to convince you to stop doing something (maximum single-stock risk) that worked so well for you.

Related: 14 Best Investing Research & Stock Analysis Websites

-- Is it helpful advice? Generally yes, but don't buy defense blindly.

While all of us could probably do a lot of good just leaving our accounts alone during a bear market, not everyone does. 

Some people want to be buy-and-hold-forever investors but just can't help but tinker. If you're just doing it at the periphery to feel a sense of control, that's OK! And if you simply aren't a buy-and-hold-forever investor, but you like to buy and sell and trade and rinse and repeat, that's OK too, as long as you can financially handle the risk!

If that's the case, a variety of defensive assets have proven to historically outperform the market. In fact, I've written about several of them in my look at bear-market ETFs, and they worked wonders during the 2025 near-bear market.

But you can't just buy indiscriminately. Every bear market is different—and the nature of the bear market can result in, say, utilities or staples actually underperforming, or typically cyclical sectors like financials and industrials outperforming. One of the best examples is energy, which has been gutted across numerous downturns throughout history but actually took off like a rocket in 2022 thanks to the particular circumstances of that specific bear market.

Related: 6 Best Money Market Funds [Protect Your Savings]

-- Is it helpful advice? Generally yes, but your financial circumstances might dictate otherwise.

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is a generally sound investment strategy. In short, if you regularly put the same amount of dollars to work buying investments, you'll end up buying more when they're low, and buying less when they're high. It's a set-it-and-forget-it plan that not only ensures your money gets invested, but actually works in your favor from a valuation standpoint. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

However, bear markets rarely exist in a bubble. They usually occur amid some sort of economic tumult, such as a recession or depression … and among other things, that can mean job losses. If you think you're at risk of being laid off (and especially if you're not confident in the size of your emergency fund), one of the ways to financially prepare is to stop contributing to your brokerage and retirement accounts and stuff the cash away instead.

So, in the event that you're worried about your near-term situation, you might actually consider downshifting or stopping your dollar-cost averaging, if only temporarily.

Related: 11 Best Vanguard Funds for the Everyday Investor

-- Is it helpful advice? Yes. 

In fact, you should take it even further: Don't open your brokerage account or 401(k) every day period.

Exceptions apply! If you're a day trader, I promise you'll do terribly if you start ignoring all your positions for a few days!

But the average buy-and-hold investor simply doesn't need to look at their account balance every day. It causes you to overanalyze both your overall direction and your individual holdings. And while you should be discerning about how your money is invested, you shouldn't tempt yourself into constantly tinkering with it.

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So if you're looking for a starting point for your own portfolio, look no further. Check out our list of the best long-term stocks for buy-and-hold investors.

If that sounds good to you, you need look no farther than low-cost pioneer Vanguard, which offers up a number of payout-oriented products. Find out what you need to know in our list of seven top-notch Vanguard dividend funds.

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But that doesn't mean you should hold on to every financial document you're given.

There's a massive difference between a tidy drawer of vital records and a pile of boxes stuffed with coffee receipts and credit card offers. It's not just the room they take up—it's their utility, and in some cases, their potential to harm you should someone else grab those documents.

Read on as I discuss which financial documents you should keep, and which ones should go straight into your paper shredder.

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Importantly, this is a list for individuals—specifically, W-2 employees. If you own a business or are a 1099 worker, there's additional documentation you might need to save.

Lastly, while you should save these documents for years, sometimes even decades, when it does come time to get rid of them … they should go right in the shredder, too. Don't just throw them out.

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The statute of limitations for assessment of tax you owe is typically three years from the date you filed the return; returns filed early are usually treated as filed on the due date. So just in case you're audited, you'll want to keep your returns for a minimum of three years, to be safe. (State-level guidance will vary, so you'll want to look up your state's statute of limitations.)

However, that statute of limitations is extended to six years from the filing date if you don't report income that you should have reported, and …

--It's more than 25% of the gross income listed on your return; or

--It's attributable to foreign financial assets and is more than $5,000.

If you think either is applicable, you'll want to keep those tax returns for at least six years.

There are a couple other timelines to be aware of. For one, the period of limitations for refund claims is seven years from when the return was due if you file a claim for "an overpayment resulting from a bad debt deduction or a loss from worthwhile securities." And if you've paid taxes to a foreign government, you might be entitled to a credit or deduction on your U.S. federal tax return. Because you have up to 10 years to claim the Foreign Tax Credit, you'll want to keep your documents for at least that long.

Lastly, there's no period of limitations for tax assessments if you file a fraudulent return or don't file a return at all, so if you have any pertinent documents, you'll want to keep them indefinitely. (But the best advice I can give you here is to file yearly, and do so truthfully.)

Related: Should Retirees Move? 10 Considerations

In fact, not only do you want to keep these documents, but you'll also want to have copies in at least two places in case one gets lost or destroyed. For instance, you might keep one copy at home with other financial records and keep another in a safe deposit box, with a financial advisor, or in the care of a trusted loved one.

These records should be kept indefinitely.

Related: What to Do Before Your Spouse Passes Away

Like with your life insurance policy, these documents are so essential that you should keep extra copies, with the originals kept in either a safe deposit box or in a fireproof safe. Backup copies should be kept with an executor or adult relative you trust.

These documents should also be kept indefinitely.

Related: Dynasty Trusts: A Beginner's Guide to Passing Down Wealth

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For example, if your lender forgot to file a satisfaction of mortgage with the local recording office after you paid off your loan, it could prevent a dispute if you later sell your home. In the unfortunate circumstance of a foreclosure or a challenge to the title, mortgage documents can show your ownership. If you sell your home, you'll also want these forms to calculate your capital gains tax liability.

Some of the mortgage forms you likely want to hold on to include:

--Purchase agreement

--Deed

--Closing documents

--Seller's disclosures

--Home inspection report

--Property survey

--Home warranty

You'll also want to have both physical and digital copies of these documents. And you should hold on to them for at least seven years after you sell or otherwise exit the mortgage, largely for tax purposes.

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Some of the documents you likely want to keep include the official plan documents, benefit statements, and any notices from the plan. Having a copy of these records is useful if there are errors in the plan's records or if they are lost. These documents are also useful to your beneficiaries if you pass away.

These documents should be held indefinitely.

Related: 8 Best Wealth + Net Worth Tracker Apps [View All Your Assets]

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Not necessarily. In fact, it might not be safe at all.

If others get hold of your financial information, you could become a victim of financial fraud. So a general rule of thumb is to only keep the financial documents you only need and shred the rest.

Plus, keeping every piece of financially sensitive information can make it more challenging to find the documents you actually need. Not to mention, having all of that paper piling up can become overwhelming; there's a certain peace to becoming more financially minimalistic. And in some cases, these documents can be reprinted again from an online portal, eliminating the need to keep physical copies around when you don't need them.

With all of that said, here are the types of financial documents you should shred sooner rather than later.

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But they also include your transaction details, and while that might not seem like an issue, scammers can use those details to get a sense of your purchasing habits.

You should keep credit card statements for no longer than 60 days. The only exception to this rule is if you'll need to include a credit card statement in your tax return for any reason.

Also note that many banks' credit card portals include the ability to print prior statements if you need physical versions of those documents.

Related: Is It Better to Pay With Cash or a Credit Card? The Answer: It Depends

Well, unless you plan to accept one of those offers, you can shred them right away. If you don't, someone could try to commit fraud by applying for a credit card in your name.

You're typically not responsible for debt accumulated on an account that was fraudulently opened in your name. However, that act of identity theft could negatively impact your credit score, and it can be a hassle to contact credit agencies to get everything sorted out. 

And you generally don't even need those mailers to apply for a card—you can do so online.

Related: Does Your Credit Score Matter in Retirement?

Insurance documents are chock full of personal and financial information that scammers would love to get their hands on. Additionally, all of those health, home, and car documents can add up to a lot of unnecessary paper clutter.

Related: Elderly Scams: Beware These 15 Schemes Targeting Seniors

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There are few reasons you would need utility statements from a long time ago, so it's typically best to shred these so scammers don't glean information from them. You'll always want to check your most recent statement against your monthly bank statement first—after that, you can shred it right away. (But like with credit card statements, you should keep utility statements for longer if you'll need them for tax filing purposes.)

Related: 50+ Best Money-Making Apps That Pay You Real Money

Assuming the ATM gave you the proper amount of money and the transaction matches your bank statement, you don't need to hold on to those slips of paper. That means, at most, you should keep these for a few weeks—and that's if you have to wait for a paper bank statement to arrive.

Related: How Much Money Do You Need to Work With a Financial Advisor?

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Still, if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “it’d sure be nice to collect these dividends more often,” you don’t have to look far. While they’re not terribly common, American exchanges boast dozens of monthly dividend stocks.

If the answer is "not much," don't worry—they get a fraction of the attention of those other investment funds. But you should also learn more about them. That's because CEFs have a host of enticing characteristics, including that they frequently pay mammoth yields. Check out our list of the best CEFs, many of which pay in the high-single and even double digits.

Also, do you want to stay up-to-date on our latest content?

1. Follow us by clicking the [+ Follow] button above,

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3. Give the article a Thumbs Up on the top-left side of the screen.

4. And lastly, if you think this information would benefit your friends and family, don't hesitate to share it with them!