If investors didn’t learn the lesson between 2000 and 2001, odds are that 2008 finally taught them the need to be prepared for a portfolio-destructing bear market. By early 2009, the major stock indices revisited lows not seen in more than a decade, effectively unwinding years worth of gains in just a matter of months. It didn’t have to happen though, if these simple strategies had been understood.

Some of these tactics are more advanced than others, such as the use of options, or employing inverse leveraged ETFs. Don’t be intimidated by any of them. Investors of all skill levels can learn and apply these ideas.

Above all other rules, this one is the most important of all … don’t lose big. Small losses are part of the game, as you have to give stocks a little wiggle room. Letting a small loss turn into a large loss is just sloppy.

What’s the line in the sand where a loss becomes too big to tolerate? It all depends. Investors need to give a stock a few percentage points worth of tolerance, recognizing they can be volatile. Option traders need to allow for much more volatility. Either way though, a stop-loss plan should be in place before the trade is entered.

Another very easy-to-use defense against a bear market are inverse ETFs (exchange-traded funds). These instruments go up when the underlying sector or index goes down. If you can buy stocks in your account, you can buy these ETFs.

Not only are inverse ETFs available, leveraged inverse ETFs offer a potential gain that is greater than the potential demise of its index or sector. A double-leveraged ETF will rise by twice as much as that index falls, but there are even a few triple-leveraged ETFs now available.

There’s only one caution to keep in mind regarding the use of inverse exchange-traded funds – they’re only of value on a temporary basis, since they lose value when stocks rise just like they gain value when stocks fall. Like most portfolio hedges, you don’t want to buy them and forget about them, as stocks always move higher given enough time.

A third bear-market strategy is simply shorting stocks… taking advantage of their declines by selling them at a high price, then buying them back at a lower price (yes, it’s allowed). Note that being able to sell a stock short requires a margin account.

But what about the horror stories we’ve all heard about margins accounts and short sales that went awry? While those stories may be true, they are few and far between… and almost always the result of poor discipline on the part of the investor rather than the account or trade itself.

The fourth effective money-making tool you can use in a bear market is put options. Like leveraged ETFs, changes in option values can also be greater – in percentage terms – than the changes in the underlying stock or index. However, unlike ETFs, a wide variety of strikes and expiration lets you custom-build your trades’ risk/reward ratio.

One thing to keep in mind about put options… though they do eventually expire (where stocks do not), owning options doesn’t force a trader into a long-term commitment. You can only lose your initial investment amount when you buy an option, which is usually much less than the cost of buying a comparable position in the stock. Your potential dollar loss in a stock position, therefore, is considerably bigger.

With all that being said, there’s one more strategy to understand…. or perhaps it’s just more of a reality to recognize. Though it seems as if a bear market drives every stock, every sector, and every market cap lower, there are always a few stocks going higher. You just have to work harder to find them

Get the point? These bear market tactics aren’t brain surgery. Anybody can use these strategies, though not enough people do. Add these tools to your toolbox, and you’ll do fine the next time things turn sour.