Every Bull and Bear market may impact you differently. Beware!

Someone said  "I'd prefer to view the viability of any method through at least 1 bull and bear market cycle, rather than number of years."
"Keke, what i meant in Singaporean terms was "I've been through 1 bull, 1 bear, then still unscathed. So i qualify to come and hao lian around :)"

Beware! The next few bull and bear markets may impact each of us differently depending on where we are in the stage of investing life cycle i.e. our level of financial resources, financial commitment, size of portfolio and size of investing account. So the experience of encountering the earlier and later bull and bear markets can be different and impact may also be different. The experience of earlier bull and bear may not be directly transferable to the management of expectation of future bull and bear markets.
 
Let me share my own experience on the two great STI Bear markets:

1. During 1997/98 Asian Financial crisis STI dropped -68.0%
2. During 2008/09 US sub-prime crisis STI dropped  -62.4%

The Great Bear of 1997/98 didn't really hurt me much. I didn't personally feel that it was a Great Bear even though  STI has dropped -68.0%; but I have witnessed some relatives' lives almost  destroyed by their investment losses.

At that time, I have smaller account size for investing and with a smaller portfolio in the stock market the financial losses was smaller too so not too much financial impact. And also at that time, there was no online trading and we have to trade through brokers. It was not easy for small retail investors to trade frequently through brokers. Since I couldn't trade more even if I have wanted and the number of positions in the market was indirectly capped.

But, in the last Great Bear 2008/09, my account size and portfolio was so much bigger than in 1997/98 so  the financial losses caused by the last bear was much bigger. Furthermore with the availability of online trading, I could trade whenever I wanted and that has resulted in having too many positions in the market and escalate the losses further.

In conclusion

When our investing account is smaller we lose small. When we lose small it may be not too difficult to replace the loss by saving harder e.g. when we lose $30K we can replace it by saving harder.

When our investing account is much bigger we may lose big and replacing a big loss through mere saving may be very tough e.g. when we lose $300K do we think it is easy to replace $300K loss by just saving alone?

When we were younger at early 30s or late 20s losing $30K during 2008/9 Great Bear may not be big deal; but when we are older at late 40s or early 50s losing $300K at the next Great Bear may be living hell to some of us as we may be wondering how to fund our kids future university education and our own retirement.

So the impact we may feel in the future bear and bull markets may be different can be quite obvious depending where we are in our investing life cycle and stages of life.