These last weeks have been brutal for investors. The wild market swings from day to day, from hour to hour, have been extremely difficult for all of us. Invested alongside of you in the very same investments I certainly feel your pain.  Even more so, I feel the pain in my professional life as I watch these markets test the resolve and financial plans of my clients.

As I write this article the decline in the stock market has been significant. As measured by the S&P 500 (a widely followed index for the US stock market) stocks were down just under 41% from their high on October 9, 2007. Amazingly, the bulk of this decline (22%) happened in the first two weeks of October, since September 30th, 2008, in the panic selling before the passage of the “rescue” package. Read more