It is always good to consider the advice of a wise old investor like Warren Buffett. Buffett has been around a long time and seen quite a few bear markets in his day. He knows that the stock market is difficult to predict and that investors need to have a smart strategy to follow if they want to win at investing. There is no investor that has beaten the market every single year. That is why your goal should be to judge your performance over a decade and not just over one single year. You need to try and pick undervalued securities which are really cheap. You can hold them for 10 years and then dump them after that. This is the way to be an effective long term investor that wins over the long haul. You will not beat the market over the short term but can do so over the long haul.