Advisors urge strategy, calm after plunge

AUSTIN (KXAN/AP) - The ups and downs on the New York Stock Exchange took more twists and turns Friday, one day after one of the biggest plunges in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

Stock prices fluctuated sharply, as they often do the day after a big slide. At the closing bell Friday, the market slid nearly 140 points.

Investors are just catching their breath as there is major instability in the world markets with Greece's major debt crisis.

Thursday, a computerized sell-off, which might have been triggered by a simple typographical error, sent the Dow Jones industrial Average down by a record nearly 1,000 points in about 30 minutes Thursday afternoon.

Local Austin investment advisers watched very closely Thursday and spent most of the day Friday reassuring clients.

When Sue Ann Bunner with Choice Asset Management saw the slide Thursday, "I said,  let's wait,"

She knew something was very wrong, and was glad most of her clients had a set strategy of investing.

"I think it's very important for anyone who invests in the market to have a strategy of what they're going to do when things are unexpected," Bunner said.

The 348-point, or 3.2 percent, drop on the Dow was the worst day for the index since February 2009 when the market was dipping and headed toward a 12-year low.

"The lesson to be learned is this," said UT Finance and Economics Professor Michael Brandl. "We have not yet seen the end of the financial crisis that started in the summer of 2007."

Brandl noted the stock market will be very volatile in the short term as global markets have yet to "return to normalcy" after the recession.

He urged those looking at retirement or those looking to need college funds soon to, "...think long and hard before putting more money into the stock market or equity mutual funds," and said those looking at a time horizon of 10 years or more to "buy and hold onto a globally diverse collection of stock."

U.S. stocks were already sharply lower Thursday even before the big mid-afternoon plunge. Investors were concerned that a $140 billion bailout for Greece would be unable to stop a spread of debt issues across Europe that could unravel a global economic recovery.