When the sharemarket gets the shakes the worst thing you can do is get them as well. Just treat it as the annual stock clearance sale, except don't go overboard because there'll be another one soon enough.
Take the other week when it veered perilously close to a correction, generally taken to be a 10 per cent drop, only to snap back as if nothing had happened.
And that's just it. Nothing had. All that's new is the Ebola scare entering the US homeland where it's hardly a pandemic. Other viruses to rock markets, and provide unexpected share bargains, include SARS, bird flu and swine flu. Remember them? Didn't think so.
It was yet more proof that the sharemarket is driven by fear and greed; the economy isn't necessarily relevant. Even when it does count what matters is the perception of where it's going rather than what might actually be happening, or indeed transpires.
Take the global economy. You might have a vague feeling it's slowing. That would be because both the International Monetary Fund (for the third time no less) and the World Bank have revised down their forecasts for 2015.
But that's only half the story, or a quarter really. The other three-quarters is that they're saying next year's growth will be stronger than this year's.
Not that I want to make too much of their forecasts because neither has a good track record and the trend is clearly toward more pessimism so they might finish up forecasting a weaker year.
They remind me of profit downgrades – the first one from a company is never the last. I don't know whether this works in reverse. Profit upgrades are rarer beasts and, besides, it's in the interests of boards to keep something up their sleeve. Underpromising, after all, makes it easier to overdeliver, something the market adores.
As it happens next year's IMF forecast for Australia was even lifted a skerrick, from 2.7 to 2.9 per cent. That's less than expected growth of 3.8 per cent but miles above the forecasts of those we compare ourselves with.
Our own Reserve Bank must think the same. The bit about local conditions in its latest board minutes had two "moderates" and one "modest" describing growth.
Hmm, nothing to write home about there.
But here's the funny thing. Over the years - so I'm a slow learner - I've realised an economic statistic is not an absolute. It's what the market wants it to be on the day as seen through the prism of the central bank's likely reaction, even though nine times out 10 there won't be one.
That's why seemingly bad news, such as the impression that global growth is slowing, just as suddenly became good news.
Bad because profits would be hit by lower spending by consumers but, as soon as the mood changed, good because interest rates would be low for longer.
Mind you, there might be method in its madness. The hissy fit that had Wall Street, and so naturally our market, veer toward a full-on correction drew blood. US Federal Reserve officials hinted maybe its money printing, or quantitative easing as it's officially known so as not to sound panicky, might be extended. It's due to end this month and the Fed is meeting as we speak.
It certainly put paid to any suggestion rates might be lifted sooner rather than later.
But heaven forbid the economy might pick up. Then rates would have to rise and where would we be?
A good place, surely. Official interest rates in most of the developed world are at or close to zero, or below zero in Europe where banks have to pay the central bank to take their money.
These low rates have been keeping the system going since the global financial crisis but they create a problem of their own.
They put the global financial system into a sort of induced coma. Nothing becomes risky any more because the alternative, super-safe bonds, earn next to nothing.
There are also mixed messages about share valuations, especially on Wall Street. Low rates boost cashflow and have undermined the US dollar, giving the big American stocks two free kicks in a row.
Since they're not investing and haven't been rehiring much, they've piled up profits which they've used to buy back their own stock, creating a virtuous circle of rising share prices.
The trouble is while free money is being stuffed into the system by central banks markets don't have to be rational, a trait they struggle with at the best of times, I find.
