(MONEY Magazine) – DR. REGINALD PARKER Physician, 44 Columbia, S.C.

Back in April 1999, $50,000 of his six-figure portfolio was in stocks.

HOW HE'S DONE: "The portfolio has gone down a bit."

WHAT HE'S LEARNED: "I should have looked at the technical situation of Nasdaq"--volume, price action, economic indicators. HIS OUTLOOK: "It's a buyer's market." He's buying Cisco, Sun, EMC and Genentech. --ARAVIND ADIGA

MICHAEL SARKOZI Commercial mortgage lender, 39 New York City

When we last talked to him for the August 2000 issue, his portfolio was worth $775,000.

HOW HE'S DONE: He's down 16%. "I've gotten to the point where I'm not looking."

WHAT HE'S LEARNED: The value of diversification. He's shopping for a value fund to balance his Janus-heavy fund portfolio.

WHAT HE'S DOING: He's still sending $1,000 a month to Janus and he's holding on to his stocks (38% of his portfolio). --LISA GIBBS

DARRELL MAK Financial consultant, 36 Arnold, Md.

When we talked to him in September 1999, he was heavily invested in tech.

HOW HE'S DONE: "I've been following the crowd--AOL, Dell, the S&P 500 index. I've just followed the market. The market hasn't done too well."

WHAT HE'S LEARNED: "As quickly as stocks go up, they can come back down just as quickly."

HIS OUTLOOK NOW: "I still believe in technology over the long run." --SRIDHAR PAPPU

MARIA MURNANE Public relations, 32 San Francisco

Last December, she was trading stocks online.

HOW SHE'S DONE: Her portfolio--tech stocks and aggressive mutual funds--is down 25%.

WHAT SHE'S LEARNED: To be more wary about taking investing advice--even from an expert. And she's sworn off dotcoms. --A.A.

ANDREA WILLIAMS Retired systems analyst, 62 Asheville, N.C.

When we talked to her for the June 2000 issue, she and her husband owned a lot of large-cap stocks, plus mutual funds like Janus Worldwide, and had 20% of their money in bonds.

HOW SHE'S DONE: The correction is "disappointing" but hasn't changed her investment style. She did sell her Gateway stock because she decided the PC market wasn't going anywhere, but she's holding on to her Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Disney, Tyco and Impath, and says of her MBNA stock, "You'd have to pry that out of my cold, dead fingers."

WHAT SHE'S DOING NOW: She's not rushing to put new cash into the market. Instead, she and her husband are making some needed repairs to their house. --L.G.

BILL ZABOWSKI Ad executive, 50 Minneapolis

In November 1998, when we last talked to him, he was "tiptoeing" back into the market.

HOW HE'S DONE: He lost about $50,000 in the past five or six months. "February 2001 was a gut-checking time." When he got his mutual fund statement from Fidelity, he couldn't bear to look at it and threw it straight into the trash.

WHAT HE'S LEARNED: The value of asset allocation. Things would have been much worse if not for his discipline in keeping to a strict plan: 50% stocks, 25% bonds, 25% cash. Overall, he's lost 5% to 10%.

HIS OUTLOOK NOW: "The days of watching stocks go up 10% or 20% in a day are over." He still believes in the long-term potential of tech, but right now he's looking for value. He just bought Rite-Aid. --A.A.

FRANK FISHER Tech executive, 57 Napierville, Ill.

When we talked to him last fall, 60% of his portfolio (currently worth $1.6 million) was invested in stocks.

HOW HE'S DONE: He's a big winner. He got out of the market at just the right time: He sold down his stocks between January and March 2000. Now they make up only 5% of his portfolio. "No one has perfect market timing, but everyone can have common sense. Nothing can go up 20% a year forever."

HIS ADVICE: "Assume you're pretty stupid and ask yourself: What are the things I can do to prevent my stupidity from killing me?...The stock market is only one form of investing. Real estate is another form. So is putting your kids through college." --A.A.

BRIAN KERECZ Tech support rep, 30 Bethlehem, Pa.

When we last talked to him in October, his tech-heavy portfolio was worth $550,000.

HOW HE'S DONE: His portfolio is down to $250,000. He's been badly hit by his 5,800 shares of Applied Materials, down from a high of $115 to $40.

WHAT HE'S LEARNED: To be more flexible. He was uncomfortable with tech valuations but stuck to his plan to sell down his tech holdings in late 2000 or early 2001. "I should have started selling my tech stocks at once" when the Nasdaq broke 5000. "You have to watch out for the behavior of others."

HIS OUTLOOK NOW: "These downturns make me more bullish than ever." He's buying chipmakers like Intel and networkers like JDS Uniphase. "I'd rather live in my car than sell these stocks." --A.A.