Overnight, the Shanghai Composite Index in China fell by nearly 7% in a single trading session, triggering circuit breakers and a domino effect that spread all over Europe. And now, 1 hour before the open of US financial markets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is set for a triple-digit decline at the open. Who knows what will actually happen. Are you ready for carnage in stocks? Here’s how to protect yourself RIGHT AWAY… and banish these concerns permanently. I’m Bryan Ellis. This is Episode #180.----Hello, SDI Nation! Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy self-directed investors like you!It’s not a new thing, people… market upheaval in China spreads to Europe, dooming U.S. markets to a substantially lower open and substantially higher prospect of a bloody day on Wall Street.Now we don’t know what is actually going to happen. Could be one of those yoyo days on Wall Street where the averages bounce all over the place and end up higher. Or, it could do something very, very different… much worse… something that many people think this market is overdue for……and that’s a scary prospect.This brings to mind a text I got from a client 3 weeks ago, on December 18. That day, the Dow had fallen by over 4% in a single day. Around 4:30, I got a text from one of my favorite clients, Paul, who said “Yet another day I am glad I have a self directed 401k that is not reliant on the stock market. Thank you for all your hard work.”I really, really appreciated that text… thank you, Paul!... and it lends some context to this day.Why?Because right now, Dow Jones futures are set to open down by about 300 points. Again, things change rapidly and that could be resolved by the time the open rolls around in about an hour, but… probably not.Why is that relevant? Well, the Dow has, so far, failed to recover the losses it made on December 18 when Paul sent that very kind text to me. And with an open of 300 points to the down side, the Dow is going to fall even farther than it fell on that awful day 3 weeks ago.And still, Paul is sitting pretty. Why? He gets a very solid rate of return every single month. In fact, Paul doesn’t know this yet – unless he’s listening… and I’ll bet he is… Hi Paul! – but Paul’s ROI numbers are going to go up even more soon… and there’s simply no stress involved in making the strong returns he’s making.How?It’s like this: Paul is getting paid EVERY SINGLE MONTH… reliably… and safely. He’s doing that by lending his investment capital at very attractive rates of return… and he’s made his money safe by getting great collateral.In fact, he’s OVER-collateralized. That means that every dollar he has invested is protected by $1.50 in collateral. Paul’s collateral is real estate in very strong markets and because of his collateral position, those markets would have to be slashed by 1/3 of it’s value before Paul’s collateral was at risk.So let’s be clear, it absolutely IS possible for real estate to fall by that much. It happened in several markets during the real estate collapse of 07 and 08. But you know what? Even in that case… in the worst of the worst scenario… which, by the way, was Las Vegas, Nevada… even in that case it took a whopping 2 YEARS from the market’s high point before it fell by one third… and that was in one of the very the worst real estate market routes in history.And you know what? Had Paul been involved in that situation… he could have seen what was coming and gotten out. Heck, he could have dilly-dallied for 6 months, even a year, and THEN sold his collateral, and could have still gotten exactly the ROI he was planning on from the beginning. That is powerful, my friends.How about your stock portfolio? What’s your collateral? You guessed it: It’s NOTHING. Nothing at all, not a single penny of anything.But Paul? Paul is solid. The kind of investments Paul makes yields from 7 or 8 to a high of 10-13%... and is still incredibly well collateralized. And it’s TOTALLY stress free. It’s simple. It’s safe. It’s stron