CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Mutual Funds Taxes Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Millionaires in the Making Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Best Funds Ask the Mole Best Places to Retire Personal Tech Big Tech Blog Techland Blog Sectors and Stocks Fortune 500 Techs Tech Talk 100 Best Places to Launch Ultimate Resource Guide Small Biz Makeovers FSB 100 Ask & Answer Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
More great Money advice
The myth of the market crystal ball
Trying to predict market swings usually results in buying and selling at all the wrong times. (more)
A strong case for market optimism
Believe it or not - you have several good reasons to believe the sky isn't falling. In fact, it may be clearing up. (more)
Investing for the long haul
This isn't the first, or the last time we've faced economic uncertainly, but with 30 or 40 years until retirement, there's no need to rush out of the market. (more)
Special Offer
4 of 19
BACK NEXT
Meir Statman
Meir Statman
•  Send feedback to Money Magazine
Professor of finance, Santa Clara University

Understand the pull of your emotions. Gains are fun. Gains bring pride. Gains promote optimism about the future. Losses bring sadness, fear, regret and pessimism.

We are naturally drawn to improving the state of our emotions, which is why people are tempted to get rid of their losing stocks. Develop some resilience.

My parents were 14 when they escaped from Poland as the Nazis were advancing in 1939. They met and married in Uzbekistan and went on to make a life for themselves. What is a 20% or even 70% portfolio loss compared to that?

NEXT: William Goetzmann

Last updated April 28 2008: 1:20 PM ET
© 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Live Quotes automatically refresh, but individual equities are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET.
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer
Copyright © 2008 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.