Traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor: the recent selloff is quite weak compared with most years. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Market commentary always gets excitable during turbulent periods, so there’s been much talk about trillions of dollars being “wiped out”. On CNBC, Black Swan author Nassim Taleb was even asked if this was a black swan event. No, replied Taleb, smiling incredulously. The S&P 500 falling 3 per cent in a day is normal; it would be odd to have a year where we didn’t see the likes.
As for the trillions that have been “wiped out”, indices falling back to where they were in May is hardly a crisis.What burger flipping tells you about the US economy In the meantime, investors must accept that volatility is, as the Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick puts it, “the toll we pay to invest”.Phonewatch billboard citing burglary statistics was ‘misleading’, ad watchdog findsPlane crashes in Brazil killing all 61 people on boardHollywoodgate: The Taliban, US military and $7bn of abandoned equipment