Only when the tide goes out can you tell who is swimming naked

-Warren Buffet

There is nothing like a bear market to restore rational thought to the market.  Corrections tend to overdo the pessimism just as bull runs decouple the stock prices from the underlying business fundamentals.  Bear markets, therefore, are the best times to structure your portfolio.  For one, the prices are the cheapest at this time in the cycle but more importantly your portfolio allocation in a bear market is likely to more closely reflect your risk perceptions and appetite.   Notice also that the quality of coverage improves and so do the quality of questions people ask before investing.  

This is important.  Pay attention to your risk tolerance as well as how well or badly your portfolio performed vis-à-vis the benchmarks.  Risk tolerance has to do with both your immediate financial strain (do you have to default on any commitments?) and the emotional duress (this will tell you about your pain threshold).  An understanding of both allows you to structure a portfolio with due regards to risk.  If your portfolio is down 60% when the broader averages are down only 33%, you have clearly been fishing in troubled waters - a clear sign that your portfolio was overweight at the speculative end of the investment spectrum.  It is a good time to reflect on why this came to be and if this is the kind of volatility you desire in your portfolio.  Cyclical swings are part of the equation so you need to be comfortable with both return and risk in your particular portfolio.  No investment can be judged on the basis of half a cycle alone.

Once you set your allocations at this time, it would be up to you to hold firm to it.  It may not seem likely at this time but the markets will come back with greater strength, it always does.  With that strength will come the temptation to again chase returns.