Now is Not the Time to Panic

As the nation’s leaders continue to debate where it is exactly the economy is headed, one of the questions on the minds of investors is what should they do with their investments. The short answer is: leave them alone.

Remember that investments are all about the long-term and as I’ve explained on here before, the economy’s activity is naturally cyclical. That means there will be times where the financial markets are riding high and other times when they’ll be riding low. Your best bet is to ride the slow turns and wait until the economy improves, the markets thrive again, and your investments start on their way back toward positive returns.

It’s only natural to freak out when things are not going your way. It’s not a pleasant feeling to turn on the news or search for market performance sources and see all the major stock market funds in the negative. But within time that will all change. The worse thing investors can do now is panic and start selling their investments when stocks prices are low, which only means you will lose out big time. This behavior will only push other investors to follow your lead, and the markets will perform even worse as time goes by.

So rest assured that better days are coming, even if it’s not clear when that is. Remember that we just survived a dark period in our history with the pandemic and the sequestering: businesses shuttered, employees were sent home and the future looked bleak as heck. But we survived, and I can assure you we will survive this current economic setback as well.