It’s been one of the worst starts to the year ever for the world’s stock markets. All the more reason to keep your nerve
Look around the global market place and you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere in the green. Out of hundreds of major global indices fewer than 20 are positive; you have to look to Slovakia (up 5% year to date) to find one of the few bright spots.
Everywhere else, it’s red—blood red, if you ask anyone owning equities. Today alone, the S&P/TSX Composite at one point was down 4%, although it’s since eased back and finished the day down 1.33%. And it’s not just Canada that’s feeling the pain. The benchmark U.S. indices, likewise, aren’t far behind, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1.56% and the broader S&P 500 down 1.17%.
Such single day losses are always tough to swallow, but these drops come after an almost continuous stream of losses since the start of the year, with barely a whiff of a positive market response to act as a buffer. It’s been like this since the opening bell on January 2, the first day of trading for the year. It’s as if the market turned the page on 2015 and entered an entirely new reality.
It’s not, of course. Here is what need to know about the selloff and what it’s going to take to stop it: