Following Herd Out of Market Will Sting in Long Run

Ready to pull the plug on the stock market and put all of your money under the mattress? Princeton economics professor Burton Malkiel writes in the Wall Street Journal that you’ll be better off riding out the storm. “No one has consistently made money by selling America short, and I am confident the same lesson is true today,” he says.

Malkiel says the herd mentality of Wall Street that’s led to massive selloffs is an overreaction. Smart investors, he argues, will stay in the market, ride out the slump, and be better off in the long run. “Investors who bail out of equities during times like these are almost always making the wrong decision,” he writes. (More financial crisis stories.)