When the market gets volatile, Mark DiGiovanni tells his clients to turn off the television and Internet and go work in the garden.

That's just one of a number of ways advisors tell their clients to deal with a market that is jumping up and down; for many advisors, however, the primary focus is to keep their clients from panicking during the types of downswings the market is now experiencing. 

“Ninety-five percent of the time, the best advice is to just sit tight,” says DiGiovanni, founder and president of Marathon Financial Strategies in Atlanta.

His planning philosophy is designed to allow them to do just that during troubled markets. DiGiovanni’s clients usually have 18 months of needed funds in a money market account, another five years worth of funds in bonds or fixed income, and money in stocks that does not have to be touched for at least six years.

“There are only two times you need to think about making a move in the stock market: sell when the price/earning ratio gets above 25, as it did in 2000 right before the tech bubble burst, and buy when the price/earning ration drops below 10, as it did in 2008. Both are great opportunities. Otherwise you sit tight,” DiGiovanni says.

On the other hand, advisors such as Adam D. Koos believe in technical analysis, determining market momentum rather than using a buy and hold strategy.

Koos, president and portfolio manager of Libertas Wealth Management Group Inc. in Dublin, Ohio, says clients do not make any money unless they sell the investments they own at a profit. This can be done by charting the momentum of the market, he says.

Koos says he uses a complicated system of ranking stocks on a buy/sell trend to look for weaknesses in the market. Using moving averages, he says, an advisor call determine and take advantage of market trends.

Critics call technical analysts market timers. “This could not be further from the truth,” says Koos. “No one can predict what the market is going to do tomorrow. I am a trend follower.” Trends can be determined by charting where the market has been, he says.

Other advisors practice a middle ground approach. Laura Brown, an advisor with Clark Street Financial in Scottsdale, Az., says her firm communicates regularly with clients so they do not panic during downturns.

“In any market, there is a way to make money,” she says. “In a downturn, we might shift out of smaller tech companies and go to utilities and consumer staples. We will pull the trigger when we make some money and not get greedy. But waiting out the downturn is usually a better option than us timing it right. If a client needs money in the next five years, we have them positioned so it is available.”

For those who want to be a little more aggressive, Mike Kilbourn, CEO of Kilbourn Associates in Naples, Fla., says owners of stocks and ETFs should consider selling options on their holdings.

“For the buyer this is riskier, but for the seller it provides cash flow to even out the volatility,” he says. “The downside to selling covered calls is that you limit your upside to the strike price.

“Volatility is not necessarily a bad thing, but an investor should work with a financial professional who specializes in buying and selling options to do this,” he adds.

Bryan Hoover, an advisor with Fragasso Financial Advisors in Pittsburgh, says the current volatility is unnerving for investors but is not much different than past market downturns.

“The time-tested principal of diversifying investments and monitoring progress toward the client’s financial goals remains the best practice. At no point would I recommend that my clients attempt to time the market with a switch to cash,” Hoover says.

“The amount of cash held by a client should be determined by the need for short-term reserves and preparation for emergency expenses,” he says. An investor who is anxious about the downswings should talk to his advisor, Hoover says.