Rational Boomer: RELAX

[Warpy]

4. My dad left me a stock market portfolio

but dizzying drops like this one, which might not be over unless the spoilt children in the Middle East start behaving themselves a little better. It will correct, in any case, booms don' t last forever.

Another thing to remember is that unless you woke up late today and decided to sell some rapidly inflating tech stock without looking at what it was doing in the market, your losses, like the massive profits leading up to them, are just numbers on paper. You don't actually gain or lose a dime unless you are selling that particular stock, which is why it's such a stupid idea to panic and sell when the market is dropping, wether for a correction, over war jitters, or because there's a plague with no treatment or vaccine. Problems don't happen when the market drops, even by a lot. Problems happen when people panic sell and keep it there, like they did when the bankers got greedy and outsmarted themselves in the early -00s and crashed everything in 2008.

IOW, relax, this too shall pass. Anyone who's been constipated can tell you that.