It's a 'Triple OhmyGad' for the Market

This is it. This is what they call "a Triple OhmyGad!"

Say it now. Get it out of your system. Roll up the office window and shout if it will help.

"Ohmygad-ohmygad-ohmygad!"

There. Is everyone set? Few things prepare us for the kind of extraordinary developments that took place last night. The collapse of Lehman Brothers. The federal intervention. The sudden takeover, or rescue, of Merrill Lynch. It is tempting at times like this for people to think of developments like the Crash of '29 and to panic.

But the reality is that the banking sector is not America. Wall Street is not America. Things may turn down for a while and times may get tougher. But life, work and the economy will go on -- even without Lehman Brothers. And this is not so new after all.

The collapse of Barings in 1994, Long Term Capital Management in 1998, 9/11, and the WorldCom panic of 2002: These things happen quite often. And when you are slap bang in the middle of them, they always feel terrifying.

Someone in finance said to me quite casually the other day that this was "much more terrifying than 9/11." Really? Are people kidding? Right now, there is no reason to speculate on banking stocks. There never was.

At times in the last year various sources have confidently announced that this was the time to load the boat with financials. Maybe they were right, I thought, and maybe they weren't. I just had no way of knowing. I could never work out what was in these banks. What liabilities they really had, and what dodgy paper they were holding.

Turned out nobody else knew either. Some of the smartest, most experienced and most sophisticated professionals have lost their shirts on bank stocks in recent months.

This column is not for those who want to treat Wall Street like it's Vegas. It's for ordinary people who want to make Wall Street work for them.

There are a few things I know and they are material now. First, the people who stay at the table and don't make stupid moves here are going to be the ones who make the money in the years ahead.

Second, no one knows how much worse things will get, how much further the market will fall, or when things will turn. And you should not trust anyone who says they do know.

Third, trying to get rich quick is one of the surest ways to get poor quick, and the only way to win this game is to keep investing little, often, and broadly.

Fourth, most great investors made their money buying in a panic. If this isn't a panic, I don't know what is. My old fund management pal Dan Bunting, in London, accumulated a few rules of thumb over 35 years at this game. Among them: "Always buy the market after a spectacular bankruptcy."

Fifth, there are a lot of good stocks out there that are pretty reasonably valued. Even long-standing bears, skeptics and curmudgeons are starting to say this. These stocks may not be dirt cheap. Times may get much worse before they get better. But if history is any guide, buying good stocks when they are reasonably priced and hanging on for five years or more has tended to be the best thing you can do with money.

And sixth: At some point this will end and when the market turns it will be rocket powered. There will be no easy chance to get back in. Invest little, often and broadly. And don't panic.

Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com