What is "bear market" and how does it impact me?
A bear market is a sustained downward market where the value of stocks as a whole is going down over a period of time. How that affects our investment portfolio is that obviously the value of our overall investments are going down, but it shouldn't affect us if we're owning stocks for the right reason. If our goal is a long term goal - which is really the only reason you want to own stocks - then that bear market isn't bad. It almost could be considered good. That is the risk that we're assuming is going to give us a higher long term return.