So you think you've got it bad. Just try being a Wall Street portfolio strategist in volatile 1994.
The correction came, as expected, but where the market goes from here remains a journey into the unexpected.
Don't kid yourself. There's still risk. Examine everything in your personal holdings to determine whether you really want it or not. Don't feel self-conscious about your jitters, since you have every right to feel shell-shocked.
"Stock-market corrections get shorter and shorter in duration and accomplish what would have taken weeks in the past," observed Steve Einhorn, chief portfolio strategist with Goldman Sachs, who recommends a bullish portfolio mix of 70 percent stocks, 25 percent bonds and 5 percent cash because he believes the bull market isn't over yet.
It's not unusual historically to have an 8- to-10 percent correction as a market makes a transition from being interest-rate driven to profit-driven, he added.
"The swiftness was surprising, but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, with the economy so strong and all the program-trading activity," said A. Marshall Acuff, chief portfolio strategist with Smith Barney Shearson, who recommends 50 percent of a portfolio be put in stocks, 25 percent bonds and 25 percent cash.
Investors should sell stocks in rallies to move up to higher-quality issues, he advised.
"There will be a lid on a stock market rally because both the restructuring of American industries and low interest rates are over," predicted Charles Clough, chief portfolio strategist with Merrill Lynch, who suggests 60 percent stocks, 25 percent bonds and 15 percent cash. "I could see the correction extending into summer."
While cautious optimism reigns, never forget the darker potential.
"I suggest investors sell or scale back stock holdings, in particular their losers, for the market isn't going to help losers anymore," advised Michael Metz, chief portfolio strategist for Oppenheimer & Co., who would put 75 percent of a portfolio in cash, 15 percent in stocks and 10 percent in bonds.
The economy is simply too strong, the Federal Reserve had been extraordinarily accommodating for a long time and stocks remain overpriced, he said.
