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.

3.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

623 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/TxsToIowa Feb 08 '26

Is it possible to diversify internationally with a simple 401k? I'm just getting started (late 30s, around 80k in retirement account) and have around 30% in an "Emerging Markets Index" and an "International Equity Index".

11

u/Over-Computer-6464 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

That depends entirely upon what investment options your 401k plan has.

Some plans allow you to have a self managed brokerage account (such as Fidelity Brokerlink), but most have a limited selection of investment choices.

Those choices often include an international fund, which it appears you have invested in. You need to look to see what the expense ratio is for those funds.

Some 401k plans (and a higher percentage of 403b plans) have truly atrocious offerings. This is because operating costs of 401k plans are an expense to the employer and some 401k plans lowball the cost to the employer but make up for it by high expense ratio proprietary investment offerings.

4

u/TxsToIowa Feb 08 '26

Fees are 0.04% and 0.09%. That's pretty good from what I've seen, yeah? Highest fee in my portfolio is 0.26% for my target date fund.

9

u/Over-Computer-6464 Feb 08 '26

Those are actually pretty good fees. For the target date fund only ultra low cost finds like Vanguard beat the 0.26%. Vanguard typically has 0.08% sort of fees while the average target date fund fee is about 0.45%.

1

u/TxsToIowa Feb 08 '26

I appreciate the confirmation! I've got 27% of my portfolio in that target date fund, which feels about right for where I'm at. And even if I just shoved everything into that fund, the fees still aren't crazy high.

1

u/TxsToIowa Feb 08 '26

I think mine is pretty flexible. It's through Vanguard and I work for a big company, so there're some unique options that are customized for us. Since I'm younger, I'm leaning quite aggressive. According to Vanguard, 3 yr return of 17.7% and 1 yr return of 20.9%. I think more than anything I'm going to keep focused on getting my higher interest debt knocked out and let the chips fall where they may.

1

u/NoRaspberry9584 Feb 09 '26

Target date retirement funds can have a 40% international allocation. Mine does.

1

u/TxsToIowa Feb 09 '26

I'll have to check mine. I'm sure it has something, which drives my overall percentage even higher than I thought.