It's certainly a good thing that windows on high rise buildings are sealed these days, or people would likely be jumping out of them. Someone asked me today if it was possible that the market was heading to zero! Imagine the kind of irrational thinking that can give rise to even the possibility of that in someone's mind, and you know what's driving the daily declines in this market.
So here's a thought for you: for every sale of stock by a frantic seller, there was also a buyer. You have to ask yourself "why would anyone be buying stock when the market is falling through the floor?" Why indeed. Because they know the market isn't going to zero. They know the panic in the streets is irrational and has nothing to do with most of the companies we read about in the papers today. They know that someday soon these companies are going to be bought and sold at something more reasonably approaching their actual value, and that's when they'll be sellers.
Where will you be then? Will you be a seller or will you be wishing you had something to sell? This is the time you need to make that decision. You either buy into the panic – because it's likely that stocks will be lower tomorrow than they are today – or you buy into the possibiliity that this isn't really the end of the world as we know it, or the end of the free market system as we know it (well, maybe a little).
Today you get to decide how far ahead you want to look in your financial decision making – short-term or long-term. If you need the cash today, you have no choice and you probably shouldn't have been in the market to begin with. But if you have the luxury of time, then take advantage of that luxury and do what wealthy people do at times like this. Wait, wait, wait, BUY!
I welcome your comments.
