If you’re an investor, you may be concerned about plunging stock markets due to the spread of the coronavirus.
But Certified Financial Planner John Maisey says if your money is invested for retirement and for long term, it’s really nothing to be concerned about.
“Part of it is in this age of social media and instant media. We’re hearing about things a lot quicker than we would have in the past. All of a sudden you’re hearing about an outbreak in Italy, which we heard about almost instantaneously, whereas years ago, you would have heard about it days later.”
Maisey says part of the panic is emotions running high, with many of the primary stock indexes seeing declines last week of up to 14 per cent.
“But the average consumer who is in a balanced portfolio managed solution who doesn’t trade on their own, is only down about four per cent. So some of it is just buying into hysteria,” he adds.
Maisey says a good comparison is the outbreak of SARS in the early 2000’s, “Within three or four months, everything was up and to the right. If you ask me where the markets will be at the end of day Tuesday, I probably couldn’t tell you. But if you ask me where they’re going to be a year from now, they’ll most likely be up and to the right. This will just be a distant memory.”
