After loosing 20K in the last week and a half I'm thinking of taking half of my money out and putting it in mutual funds instead of individual stocks. Is that smart? Should I ride it out? I'm not in it for a quick buck I'm in the market for the long hall.

Depends what individual stocks you own. If they are diversified, you are better off with your own in the long haul.

Yes you should be proactive. There's two things you should do: wait for an appropriate time to dump your stocks, and invest in a "bear market fund."Details: http://commonsensetrading.googlepages.comThat's a webpage I put up today. Sorry .. I can't type the same answers over and over again.

Learn investing. Learn "Asset Allocation". Learn Money Management (including stops and position sizing).As far as "riding it out", if you're into "fad stocks", without understanding investing..... over time you're going to get killed.(Fad stocks would include: GOOG, AAPL, FSLR, DRYS, HOLZ, MOS, WFR, FCX, BCSI, INP, VIP, JASO and other Solar and CHINA equities... plus a whole lot more)..................Everything in trading is by "percentage" so if your $20,000 is more than 10% of your net portfolio... you haven't done well.My total down is 7% of my whole portfolio over the past 3 months. This compares to much worse for the whole market.I read investment books regularly (I concentrate on technical and psycological trading books). If you had done this you would have stopped the bleeding with good "stops" and waited for the market to calm down.

Take your money and invest it into precious metals gold,silver,platium when the housing market goes bad metals go up gold went from 600 per oz to almost 900 in 2 months .silver is cheaper and has went up from 13 to 16 in that time also .Gold will hit over 1000 per oz and silver will get to 24or 25 Last time we had a recesion silver went to 50 per oz check kitco.com and research it

The stock market is the ultimate in the gambling fraternity. If you had gained 20k how would you feel???? If you have bought into good solid stocks... I mean GOOD & SOLID you have very little, if nothing to worry about, STOP panicking... Bottle ! ! ! That's all you are lacking at the minute... If not just add a note as to which stocks you have. I can only try 4 you bud !

While today was a US and Asia rally- almost all stock were getting hit hard. You probably don't belong in individual stocks but in mutual funds - probably index funds.I hate selling when there is such a quick down turn. Things almost always overreact. Most non pro's panic and sell low and when things are going well buy high. You are supposed to do the opposite.No one can tell you when it is the correct time to make the switch. You might consider if you will have a tax loss that could save you some taxes.