It's advice my Dad would have appreciated as he would have seen this British war poster, "Keep Calm and Carry On," as a child during WWII.  Jonathan and I had this conversation on Monday (the 9th) which now seems like eons ago. We pulled this together on short notice because I wanted listeners to get Jonathan's perspective on the recent market tumult. We discuss circuit breakers, oil markets, bear markets, investor psychology and what an investor should do in these uncertain times. I also encourage folks to subscribe to Jonathan's Humble Dollar blog, and also to read his recent post, Grin and Bear It.  Stay safe!

Details:

• 0:00~1:38 Introduction
• 1:38~2:47 What is a ‘circuit breaker’?
• 2:47~6:15 What happened in the oil market? 
• 6:15~9:46 The ‘inverted yield curve’ and the bond market
• 9:46~12:11 Running the blog HumbleDollar
• 12:11~13:50 The blog post “Bad News”
• 13:50~14:16 A word from NGPF
• 14:16~18:25 News articles about stocks 
• 18:25~21:01 Diversification with bonds
• 21:01~24:00 How the market will re-stabilize 
• 24:00~27:03 What should you do?
• 27:03~28:27 Conclusion 

Resources:

• HumbleDollar 

• Blog Post - “Bad News”  

Quotes:

• “We probably should not give the bond market too much credit because I don’t think the bond market could have forecasted a pandemic.”

• “I have seen a decline in traffic [to HumbleDollar] relative to most weeks in February and I think that is because people are less worried about the stock market and more about getting the coronavirus.”

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For more on bear markets, check out this recent Question of the Day: How many bear markets have there been in the last 63 years? 

About the Authors

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

Ren Makino

Ren started interning at NGPF in 2014, and worked part-time through high school and college. With his knowledge growing alongside NGPF, he joined the team to work full-time after graduating from college in 2020. He is also the producer of the NGPF podcast. During his free time, he likes to try out coffees from different roasters across the world.