TWSE Breaks 40,000 in H2 2026: Four Principles to Protect Your Principal from Getting Wiped Out
The TWSE is at 40,000 but your account is still losing money. This is not a joke, it is happening right now. The index hitting a new high and your account making money are two completely different things, and that is the biggest cognitive blind spot for 90% of Taiwan retail investors. This article uses the real recovery cycles of the 2008 financial crisis (TWSE fell nearly 60%, recovery over five years), the 2020 COVID crash (nearly 30% in a single month), and the 2022 rate-hike cycle (close to 32% drawdown) to show how the wrong capital allocation can lock your losses in. It also breaks down the cost gap between active funds charging 1.5% to 2.5% in annual management fees versus index ETFs like 0050 under 0.4%, and the hidden transaction-cost bill that can exceed NT$10,000 a year for an active retail trader. It then walks through four principles to protect your principal in a TWSE-40,000 high market: building a capital firewall, replacing lump-sum entry with dollar-cost averaging, setting written stop-loss and take-profit rules before entry, and rebalancing annually. It closes with four veto iron rules to keep you from adding at the worst possible moment.