In March 2020, as the market was crashing, I panicked and sold my entire portfolio. Everything. In the middle of the fear, watching numbers bleed red, I convinced myself I was protecting whatever was left. So I dumped all of it and got out.
Then came the recovery. Within the same year. And I got to watch, from the sidelines, as every single stock I'd sold nearly doubled from the exact price I'd exited at. Over the following eight months, one after another, they climbed right back up and then far beyond. Stocks I'd owned, gone from my account, soaring without me.
That's the part that actually hurt. Because the crash itself wasn't the real damage. Crashes happen, markets fall, that's just the nature of it. If I'd simply held, I'd have been fine, better than fine.
The loss wasn't the crash. It was the decision I made in the middle of it. That one panicked choice to sell at the bottom cost me far more than the falling market ever would have. The market recovered just fine. My timing was the disaster.