3 Keys To Navigate Stock Market Fluctuations, According to Money Experts Julien and Kiersten Saunders

While seeing the value of your investments fall is never fun, it does mean you have enough in savings to be investing for your future, which is something to be proud of. As financial gurus Julien and Kiersten Saunders say, “If you don’t put your money to work, you will always be working for it.”

In order to stay on the path to your investing goals, it’s critical to understand how to navigate stocks’ ups and downs. Stocks return about 10% per year, on average. But when stocks do go down, it can be nerve-wracking for investors. In a recent video , Julien and Kiersten Saunders discussed how to invest with a cool head without getting caught up in market noise.

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Here are three tips, recommended by these money experts, to weather a stock market storm.

Also see five things you should consider before making an investment .

Money mistakes the super wealthy never make - that you might be doing now.

Diversifying

You may have heard that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. While that’s often true, Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz contradicted this saying by calling diversification a “free lunch” in investing. By this, he meant that diversification can help increase your long-term returns while decreasing your risk.

To diversify your stock portfolio, you should own stocks from different types of companies to avoid concentration risk. You can do this by buying numerous individual stocks, but you don’t have to know how to buy stocks to have a diversified portfolio. An easy way to achieve diversification is by purchasing broad investing products, such as an exchange-traded fund that covers a large selection of stocks.

“Your diversification — we do that through index funds, but we also have a mix of international [and] domestic … a sprinkle of bonds, we have sector indexes in certain accounts … [and] income-producing assets as an additional safety net,” Kiersten Saunders said.

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Dollar-Cost Averaging

“Dollar-cost averaging … is the fancy term for investing at regular intervals,” Kiersten Saunders said. It essentially means periodically investing a consistent amount of money. That way, the total amount of money you invest isn’t as affected by marketing timing. It allows you to avoid the risk of the market falling significantly right after you invest a big lump sum.

This can be a good way to smooth out the stock market’s ups and downs, and, fortunately, it’s easy to achieve if you’re working and consistently saving money. Simply set aside some money every month and make sure that money is invested in the stock market.

Focusing On What You Can Control

The stock market reflects the sum of decisions being made by millions of investors and companies around the world every day. Does that sound like something you have much influence over? Fortunately, you can control your decisions about investing.

When the market’s rocky, focus on the active decisions you’re able to make, such as the decision to keep saving every month or the decision to not sell your investments just because their value has temporarily dropped. When the market’s soaring, you can control your decision to stay diversified and avoid buying into the new hot sector or investment.

“At the end of the day, any individual stock price is going to be a moving target. You can either drive yourself crazy trying to predict every single move … or you can develop a strategy that puts your behavior — the thing that you control — at the center of your success,” Kiersten Saunders said.

If you find it difficult to navigate the market on your own, you may look to a reliable financial advisor for guidance. A professional can also connect you with trusted brands, retirement products and retirement services.

Ultimately, stock market fluctuations shouldn’t drive your decisions. Dips are a normal part of investing. And as Julien and Kiersten Saunders say, you must “know the difference between mistakes and market cycles.”

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : 3 Keys To Navigate Stock Market Fluctuations, According to Money Experts Julien and Kiersten Saunders