I have a positive gain.
2000 was a down year but 2001 was about +6% and this year I'm
cookin'.
I went into 2000 heavily in tech stocks. It took till June to figure out this isn't working and bail out. I went through oils and now switched to consumer cyclicals, with FRED, MIK, and PNRA my biggies.
I think the secret is not to be too wedded to your stocks. Yes, don't go in and out every day--but there hasn't been a month go by that I didn't trade something. Probably most of the time I hold for several months, sometimes, in taxable account, make it to a year to be able to get taxed just as long term capital gains.
The old adage about cutting losses short and letting profits run still applies. I held CPN too long, but did get out with a profit. Never owned any Enron. Got out of Applied Microcircuits before all the profit was gone, similarly NVDA. I watch results on a daily basis.
Best wishes, Chris