Almost any time the financial markets are said to be in turmoil is when 95% of folks should turn off the moronic network news and absolutely do not check 401k balances.
The time to be concerned and act is when a meteor takes out central Europe, or China declares war and invades Russia, or POS ISIS nukes a US city, then and only then do you check balances and consider some extreme action. In other words a true catastrophe is what we should be afraid of in terms of long term financial markets.
Barring a true serious event that changes the world, 10-20- even 30% market drops are typically noise that resolves itself in 3 years or less. Stay the course - ignore the network news fear mongering and hype - that is designed to scare you and keep gullible people watching their histrionics so they can sell more high dollar commercial time to sponsors.
Two important factors to stay focused on during volatile market times -
1) Since the market is a zero sum game people who think market is going lower are selling shares being bought by people thinking those very same shares are going up.
2) The only way to lose money in a down market is to sell your shares at a loss. Long term investors understand volatility in share value over time and that the only price that matters is the price they get when they actually sell. To a long term investor market volatility over relatively short periods of time is just noise.
The time to be concerned and act is when a meteor takes out central Europe, or China declares war and invades Russia, or POS ISIS nukes a US city, then and only then do you check balances and consider some extreme action. In other words a true catastrophe is what we should be afraid of in terms of long term financial markets.
Barring a true serious event that changes the world, 10-20- even 30% market drops are typically noise that resolves itself in 3 years or less. Stay the course - ignore the network news fear mongering and hype - that is designed to scare you and keep gullible people watching their histrionics so they can sell more high dollar commercial time to sponsors.
Two important factors to stay focused on during volatile market times -
1) Since the market is a zero sum game people who think market is going lower are selling shares being bought by people thinking those very same shares are going up.
2) The only way to lose money in a down market is to sell your shares at a loss. Long term investors understand volatility in share value over time and that the only price that matters is the price they get when they actually sell. To a long term investor market volatility over relatively short periods of time is just noise.
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