Investors have short memories.
Keeping that in mind, you might want to print this column and save it at the ready. It is timely reading this week and without any doubt will be again — soo
ner than any of us want to admit.
Along with death and taxes, one certainty in life is that the stock market will gyrate wildly, each time robbing investors of any remaining sense of financial well being.
When a stock market quake hits, stunned shareholders always get airborne, seeking a flight path to safety. In the immediate aftermath, my in-box overflows with queries from shell-shocked individuals searching for quality alternatives to the Wall Street temblors.
My answers are pretty much the same each and every time, although I must admit I remain puzzled why so many people who cry “foul” when Wall Street shakes, soon behave like “fowl” and — despite their badly damaged nest eggs — wing their way back to their 401(k)s and other Wall Street roosts, often within weeks or months.
So, fully aware that I will likely be pressed into writing some variation of this column again in the not-too-distant future, I present three of the questions I’m asked most frequently and my replies: