“Be calm,” says local financial coach about stock market

WATERTOWN, N.Y. (WWNY) - Friday was a better day on Wall Street with the major stock averages gaining 6 percent. However, you most likely know the markets are well off their highs because of fears over the economic effects of the coronavirus.

So with markets down 20 to 25 percent, what do you do?

On Thursday, the stock market had its biggest drop since the Black Monday crash of 1987 as fears of economic fallout from the coronavirus deepened. The Dow plunged more than 2,300 points. It made up some of the ground it lost Friday, but markets are still significantly down.

Local financial coach Jeffry Weldon is telling his clients not to do anything crazy.

"Emotion is driving the day and you have to step back, be calm and remember what you were doing in the first place," he said.

Weldon says investors should have a portfolio that's set up to weather the ups and downs in the market.

He says a lot of people want to move money, trying to predict the market, but he says predicting it just can't be done. He says the best thing for people to do is to be talking with a financial advisor, be very well diversified and take advantage of the ups and downs of the market to do re-balancing or buying or selling assets to maintain a desired level of risk.

"An important thing to remember is you're not going to win at stock market game. Stock picking and market timing and track record investing just are losing ways to work with the stock market," said Weldon.

He says for some solace, take a look back at history. He points out with other outbreaks like Ebola, SARS and the Swine Flu, there were market drops and the market has always recovered after those.

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