You’ve been driving around that dream car you’ve always wanted. At work, you’ll volunteer to drive to lunch so your co-workers can admire your new ride. Every weekend, like clockwork, you spend time cleaning the car and making sure it is shined. After all, you have worked hard and saved your money to make your goal a reality.

If you suddenly got a flat tire one day, would you be tempted to sell your car?

Let’s face it – the month of August has been a tough one for most people who are invested in the stock market. The Dow just suffered two historic days of losses. On Monday, the Dow plunged about 5% shortly after US markets opened. The index clawed back many of these losses intra-day but still ended the day down almost 600 points. That was on the heels of Friday, when the index lost about 3%.

In fact, the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 each dropped by roughly 6% last week. These losses are tough to stomach. Fear and uncertainty in the global markets have caused them to get run through the gauntlet as well.

Markets adjust to minute-to-minute changes based on new information. That’s part of the reason why, in spite of yesterday’s losses, US markets initially opened Tuesday up about 2.5%.

But none of this really matters assuming you have long-term investment goals. You don’t need to react. You can’t control what happened in the market last week, or what will happen this week. But you can control your long-term goals and investment strategy. You can control how diversified you are so that the type of volatility we have experienced recently doesn’t tempt you to abandon your plans.

Are you ready to start a real conversation? Visit our website or call (770) 984-2312 and allow us to help you navigate through these uncertain times.