The millennials get the jitters over market gyrations

Many had been venturing into equity picking on their own and with too much confidence

with a financial adviser they can call or text to walk them back from the cliff,” said Jason Dorsey, president of The Center for Generational Kinetics, a research firm. “For many of them, it’s been a pretty rude awakening.”

Poor Investment skills

Many millennials are familiar with debt because of their credit cards and student loans. But concepts like portfolio diversification and longterm investing are less well-known, experts said.

“If you haven’t been taught how markets truly work over time, and you don’t have the historical perspective, then bouts of volatility like this could cause you to make bad decisions,” said Brian Levitt, a senior investment strategist at OppenheimerFunds.

Many young investors were sanguine about the swings as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained back 567 points on February 6 after shedding a total of more than 1,841 points on February 2 and February 5. On February 7, Wall Street edged lower; the Dow lost another 19 points, or 0.1 per cent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 0.5 per cent.

Paul Whited, 24, lost nearly $800 of the $12,000 in his portfolio as holdings in biopharmacy and technology stocks were walloped. On February 6, he made back $300.

The Knoxville, Tennessee-based accounting student began investing actively two years ago. His recent losses hurt, he said, but the volatility could present an opportunity to buy.

“Investing in stocks to secure a safe retirement is too important to let fear change my plans,” he said. “I have plenty of time ahead of me to earn my money back and then more.”

New York Times New York Times Josh Stillman, 27 has money invested in the stock market and learned about it from watching videos and reading. Mario Tehuitzil, a medical student at New York University. His stock portfolio had plummeted by more than 40 per cent before swelling back.