STAY COOL WHEN HOT

IT’S a dangerous time to be an investor.

The average investor, as the stock market bounds past new highs like this week’s 13,000, makes mistakes, financial experts say. He becomes too enthusiastic and buys up stocks as they grow more expensive.

Later, he reverses course when the market is diving. Panicked investors sell just when the market is offering bargains.

“The investor needs to control his emotions,” warns Lewis Altfest, a certified financial planner in Manhattan. “He should not go with the herd.”

Charles Hughes, a certified financial planner in Bay Shore, N.Y., says investors should have a plan and stay with it in both good times and bad.

“If you are committed to 50 percent of your portfolio in equities and, because of the gains, it is now 60 percent, you should take some money from stocks and put it in a category that has been underperforming,” Hughes says.