8 Ways to Rescue Your Retirement Portfolio

3. Go for the gold

One asset class that's been rising in value during these turbulent times is gold. The yellow metal has lived up to its reputation as a haven during a crisis. Indeed, an ounce of gold has gone from around $1,525 per ounce at the start of the year to more than $1,700 per ounce. That gain of around 12 percent is better than the 12 percent decline suffered by the S&P 500 stock index.

The takeaway: This may be the right moment to turn that gold watch into green dollars, Ogorek says. “Gold prices are up. If you have physical gold in the form of jewelry or coins, this may be a good time to cash them in.” Obviously, you don't want to sell items that are of great sentimental value. But if you have gold pieces that you don't want, consider getting some cash for them. The same is true for silver, which sells for about $15 per ounce, although it's down nearly $2 since the first of the year. If it's not sparking joy, let it generate cash. Get a couple of quotes for your gold or silver from reputable dealers to make sure you get the best price.

4. Finance can't-wait major purchases

Let's say the refrigerator conks out or your car's transmission stops working. Normally, you'd pay for major appliance replacements or car repairs with cash. But doing so now will starve you of the dollars needed for other things.

One solution to consider is taking advantage of lower borrowing costs or a zero percent credit card offer, Waller suggests, noting that “it can buy someone a bit of time.” Waller points out that financial markets tend to show positive returns six to 12 months after a low in a major correction.

"Taking out debt may seem contrary to conservative investors,” Waller adds. “But spreading payments out at low rates may be an appropriate move for some investors who need to make larger purchases that cannot be delayed.”

5. Reduce withdrawals

If you've increased your income a bit, you can reduce your withdrawals a bit. Taking any withdrawals from stocks or stock mutual funds can be a bad idea in a bear market, because withdrawals amplify your losses. Suppose the S&P 500 ended the year with a 20 percent decline, and at the end of the year your $100,000 portfolio was worth just $80,000 before taking distributions. If you had taken out $4,000 during the year, your ending balance would be $76,000, a 24 percent decline. You'd need to earn nearly 32 percent to get back to $100,000.

If you can afford it, withdraw less. “Investors may need to drop their draw rate by 1 percentage point to 1.5 percentage points until they can rebuild their investment base,” Ogorek says.

A more sophisticated solution is to take your withdrawals from assets other than stocks. Most people have a mixture of stock, bond and money market mutual funds in their portfolio. You could take withdrawals from your money fund or bond fund, instead of your stock fund, when the market declines. Eventually, you'd have to refill those money market or bond accounts, but it would be better than taking withdrawals from stock funds in a bear market.

If you're getting checks automatically from a retirement account, consider putting a hold on them, if you can afford to. This will allow you to choose when you're selling your shares.

6. Don't reinvest dividends

If you regularly reinvest stock dividends you earn back into your retirement fund, stop doing this until the crisis passes, Lassus advises. This strategy will allow you to funnel needed income to a money market account and help you avoid having to sell stocks in funds that are worth a lot less than they were at the start of the year. Says Lassus: “These distributions can be … used to build cash to supplement income.”

7. Lighten up on losers

If you invest in individual stocks, don't make the mistake of jettisoning the strongest ones in your portfolio, says Jeff Winn, managing partner at International Assets Advisory. A better strategy is to trim your laggards. “Pick on the weaker holdings and hold the stronger ones,” he recommends. “Avoid the mistake of selling the winners because you're afraid to sell the losers and accept defeat. Arrogance like that is expensive.” Be sure to check the brokerage costs of selling your stocks, and remember that if you are in a taxable account, you may have to pay capital gains taxes.

If your stocks are in a taxable brokerage account and you sell a stock or mutual fund at a loss, you get some comfort from Uncle Sam. You can use your losses to offset capital gains you have that tax year and deduct $3,000 of losses from your income if you have excess losses. You can carry any other losses forward into the next tax year.

8. Rebalance but don't reload

If your planned asset mix is 50 percent stocks and 50 percent bonds, your stock portion likely shrank during the sell-off. You might have 40 percent stocks and 60 percent bonds. So now's a good time to sell assets that went up, such as bonds, and put the proceeds back into stocks to get back to your target asset allocation, Winn advises. This type of strategy forces you to buy low and sell high.

But there's a caveat: Don't rebalance and make your portfolio riskier by increasing your allocation to stocks to more than it was before the bear market. Sure, your portfolio might rebound more strongly with a higher percentage of stocks, but recall how bad you felt when you watched it tumble. “[Investors] need to be careful and truly rebalance — not create a directional bet on a recovery,” Winn says. “In other words, rebalance, don't overweight.”

And one more thing: There's not necessarily a quick fix to repair a portfolio after a bear market.

There are no “rabbit-out-of-the-hat magic tricks,” Winn says. “In my opinion, they don't exist. … The closest thing to a real fix is time and a balanced [portfolio], not a hot stock tip or a too-good-to-be-true [investment] product.”