AAPL

TSLA

AMZN

META

AMD

NVDA

PEP

COST

ADBE

GOOG

AMGN

HON

INTC

INTU

NFLX

ADP

SBUX

MRNA

Markets

Smooth Investing When the Ride Is Bumpy

April 11, 2026 — 08:49 pm EDT

Written by

Motley Fool Staff for

The Motley Fool->

In this episode of Motley Fool Money, Motley Fool contributors Jon Quast, Matt Frankel, and Rachel Warren discuss:

- Market volatility: What it is and how bad things can get.

- How diversification can help returns.

- Stocks that help long-term returns.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »

A full transcript is below.

Where to invest $1,000 right now

When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor’s total average return is 968%* — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500.

They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 11, 2026.

This podcast was recorded on April 6, 2026.

Jon Quast: The stock market is getting bumpy, but we want to be smooth investors. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Fool Money with the Hidden Gems team. I'm Jon Quast, and I'm joined today by our contributors, Rachel Warren and Matt Frankel. We are really happy that we can start taking some questions from our mailbox on this show. It's a really great addition. It actually works out really well this week because we had to tape today's episode in advance. If you are in the future, listening to our voices, and the world is falling apart, something is on fire, and we're not talking about it, apologies. We're living in the past taping this, and that's why we're not acknowledging, but let's get to our question here. We're actually going to make an entire episode out of this, and here is the mailbag item that we pulled out.

It's from a listener named Brandon O'Shaughnessy. He writes, Dear Motley Fool Money Team. I'm writing to you today regarding the significant market volatility we are experiencing in 2026, given the current sea of red and the fact that many investors are seeing their recent returns wiped out, would you be able to take 10 minutes on an upcoming segment to discuss why diversification and maintaining a long-term outlook are the keys to surviving this environment? Specifically, I would love to hear your insights on how investors can persevere through these downturns and whether you believe The Motley Fool strategies can truly beat the market during times of such intense volatility. Thank you for your time and for all the great content you provide. Best regards, Brandon O’Shaughnesy.

Rachel, Matt, I thought we might break this down piece by piece. Let's address the first part of what Brandon writes about. Let's talk about volatility. Rachel, what is stock market volatility, and from a broad market perspective, what should investors consider to be normal?

Rachel Warren: When we talk about volatility, I think a lot of people think, oh, maybe a market crash is coming. But honestly, in the investing world, volatility, from a technical standpoint, it's really the speed and frequency of price changes. You think of it like turbulence on a flight. It's the bumps that the market experiences as it's processing new information. This could be interest rate hikes. This could be geopolitical headlines. It could be a wide range of drivers, but it's really just the market trying to find a fair price for stocks in real time, or even more to the point, how investors value those stocks at that specific point in time.

Now, for a long-term investor, volatility is not the enemy. It's really the price of admission for those higher returns that stocks can offer over things like, savings accounts or bonds in the long term. But I think it is important to point out from a broad market perspective, normal in the market can actually look a lot bumpier and even more volatile, if you will, than most people realize. Historically, the S&P 500 experiences an average intra-year drawdown of about 14% give or take. That means that in a perfectly healthy year, it's completely standard to see the market drop even double digits at some point before recovering. We typically see a single-digit, around 5% pullback every few months. Even a 10% correction roughly once every year or so. Understanding those benchmarks is really crucial because I think it really