It seems like once or twice a year for the last few years, we’ve had to address concerns with short-term volatility, usually in the equity (stock) markets. We’ve addressed this most important issue several times already (here) and (here) and (here) and (here), and today we felt it was important to remind our clients to do their very best to ignore the daily swings in value that are happening at the moment. What causes panic in most people is that we aren’t sure why the drops are happening, and we don’t know when it will stop. It’s uncertainty, and not being able to see the future, that makes you panic as an individual investor. The investing world, as a whole, is no different. Read the headlines and the first few lines of every news story about market volatility during the past few weeks and you’ll see the same worries played out over and over again. “The selloff is a continuation of… ongoing worries about the U.S.-China trade (dispute)…” “Dow Jones Futures: Scared Yet?” “The losses have been sparked by a flurry of concerns about everything from higher interest rates and crashing oil prices to the US-China trade war.” “This touted market predictor [translation: a GUESS] screams sell…” (Emphasis ours.) It’s clickbait. It’s all emotion. It’s even hysterical. Get enough of that GroupThink happening, and you’ll most definitely see temporary drops in the markets. At nVest Advisors, we try our best to understand the emotional dynamics underlying most investing decisions. We’re also keenly aware of how often those emotions harm our clients’ investing goals rather than help them. Keeping your emotions out of your investing is one of the most important things we can do for our investment advisory clients.