The mistakes investors should avoid when the stock market plunges

The recent plunge in stock prices easily could prompt an average investor to bail out of the stock market. But that's often a mistake.

There's no denying how nerve-wracking a 1,000-plus points drop in the Dow Jones industrial average can be, especially when it happens twice in four days as it did last week.

The market also briefly suffered a correction - that is, a drop of 10 percent or more from its most recent high - and headlines about the nosedive