Focus on long-term goals

The truth is that retirement savers can’t afford to be rash. Building wealth is a long-term process.

“In times of stock market volatility, I tell my clients that it’s crucial to remember that such fluctuations are a natural part of investing,” Ryan Haiss, a certified financial planner at Flynn Zito Capital Management in Garden City, N.Y., told Yahoo Finance.

If you’re tempted to do something major, tap the brakes.

It’s pretty tough to find the best time to sell and to buy stocks. If you get out when markets dip, you might very well miss out on the upside when they get rolling again.

The bigger issue is not what goes down this week, but what happened over the last year. The reality is that stocks do have market risk, but even those of you close to retirement or retired should stay invested in stocks to some degree in order to benefit from the upside over time.

If you’re 65, you could have two decades or more of living ahead of you and you’ll want that potential boost.