But Kineke remains calm. In fact, she was expecting the downturn, which she argues mirrors a similar downturn in early 2011.
“We had been waiting for a correction, sitting on our hands with a lot of cash,” she says. “It’s more frustrating to have all that cash without a lot of return.”
George Tamer, TD Ameritrade’s managing director of strategic relationships, says that advisors learned the value of communication through market turmoil during the 2008 financial crisis.
“We found that advisors really have to communicate,” Tamer says. “It’s not just about putting newsletters or blogs out there, but reaching people directly.”
That’s important, says Finfrock, because investors are exposed to conflicting messaging and advice through the financial media.
“There are a lot of fearmongers out there trying to sell their own products and services,” Finfrock says. “The media’s job is to sell advertisements, and in some places the way they do that is to sensationalize every tick upward or downward that the markets take.”
Straus says that market commentators are a constant thorn in advisors’ side.
“The market pundits have all been 100 percent wrong,” Straus says. “They missed the big downside at the beginning of the year, and they missed the big uptick over the past few weeks. No one has a working crystal ball.”
Finfrock says taking a broader view of the global and domestic economies helps his clients put their fears into perspective.
“We’re reminding them of the positive things in the economy,” he says. “We’re in such a different space today than we were back in 2008. For the most part, earnings are coming back strong, companies have more cash on hand and most people are not overleveraged.”