Berkshire Business Outlook #4 — Holding Steady in a Shaky Stock Market

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Professor Richard Yanow, who teaches investment and finance in the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Department of Business Administration and Economics, discusses the importance of keeping calm amidst volatility in the stock market.

Mainstream media can be a great source of information about what’s happening in the business world, but don’t read too much into looming, distant events that could affect investors in unknowable ways, says Yanow.

Developments such as the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the raising of interests rates by the Federal reserve could shore up confidence or send jitters through the financial world. The better bet, says the MCLA professor, is for investors to educate themselves through industry publications such as Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal, so that when inevitable downturns occur, available funds might be put to good use building up a portfolio at a discount due to unjustified panicked sell-offs in a nervous stock market.

Richard Yanow has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is Professor of Business Administration/Economics at MCLA and teaches courses in Business Strategy (senior level seminar), Personal Investing, Corporate Finance, and an Intro to Business course for both business and non-business first year students. He serves on the Investment Committee of the Northern Berkshire United Way and is a Director of the MCLA Foundation and serves on their   Endowment and Trust Committee. He is,in addition, and importantly, a private investor who actively manages his stock portfolios… and has done so for many years. Mr. Yanow lives in Williamstown with his wife, Elaine.