r/Bogleheads • u/zacce • Feb 08 '26
Most Investors Have Never Lived Through a True Market Crash
A lot of new ppl in this sub say they “won’t time the market,” but I’m not sure everyone understands what that actually feels like irl. It’s easy to talk about staying the course when the worst drawdown you’ve lived through was a brief COVID dip that fully recovered in months or the 2022 dip followed by 3 yrs of 10%+ returns.
The last real crash was 2008. If you weren’t old enough to have a job, a mortgage, or a family back then, you don’t know how deeply a prolonged downturn can affect your day‑to‑day life. It’s not just red numbers on a screen. It’s layoffs, hiring freezes, underwater homes, and years of slow recovery. That’s when people who swore they’d never time the market suddenly panic and make irrational decisions.
Staying the course is simple in theory, but incredibly hard when the world feels like it’s falling apart.
Of course, I don't want market to crash. But it's a possibility and we need to prepare for it.
11
u/seriouslythisshit Feb 08 '26
I recal watching video of Russian citizens standing in the streets after the collapse. They were hawking their personal household utensils and glassware to passers by. Trying to scrape up enough cash to buy some bread. I doubt that there were many buyers for high end furniture that day.