Stock Market Sell-Off: History Says This Is the Best Move to Make Right Now

So your portfolio is redder than a stoplight, and your AI stocks are doing their best impression of a deflating balloon. The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) has fallen 7.6% from its early October highs, dragging other market indicators lower. Pullbacks of this magnitude tend to rattle investors, particularly those who piled into artificial intelligence plays over the past two years -- the exact tickers that are driving the recent pullback.

But it's OK. Take a deep breath and find a seat. Hitting the panic button never pays off, but history strongly suggests doing one specific thing while everyone else rushes for the exits.

And it's an extremely simple strategy: Just stay the course.

The cost of panic

Selling in the middle of a market drop is rarely a good idea.

For example, imagine losing patience during the inflation panic four years ago. The Fidelity NASDAQ Composite Index ETF (NASDAQ: ONEQ) that had served you so well in recent years suddenly looked like a liability after falling 33% in 2022. So you stopped your monthly ONEQ buys in the retirement fund and converted to ultra-safe cash at the end of the year.

And then it turned out that the newfangled artificial intelligence stuff had market-moving powers. ONEQ soared 44.6% in 2024. As of Oct. 23, the ETF has gained 150% since the end of 2022. The cash in your pillowcase hasn't done much, and even a top-notch savings account can't match the market returns you missed.

I'm not treading new ground here, just reminding you what the masters might say. "Stay the course" is not just an appropriate quote from master investor John Bogle, but also the title of his 2018 memoir. Warren Buffett agrees with that mission statement. So would Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing.

Image source: Getty Images.

The boring strategy that works

So what does "stay the course" actually look like? Mostly, it looks like nothing. Whatever you did before the drawdown should be your routine during and after the drop, too.

Your retirement plan is already set to buy shares of your favorite index fund every two weeks; let it keep doing that. Prices are slightly lower now, which means each contribution buys a little more than it did last month. That's not a bug, that's the feature.

For those with cash on the sidelines, a pullback can be an opportunity to add positions in quality stocks that have declined for reasons unrelated to their fundamentals. But that's just a bonus feature of broad market corrections. If you were caught unprepared, that's completely fine.

The primary move is very simple: Keep doing what you were already doing. The investors who build wealth over decades are rarely the clever ones. They're the patient ones.

Anders Bylund has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.