Though the new year brought new beginnings, the stock market has since fluctuated in performance and stability. Since January, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell has fallen by 1.9 percent.
The decrease in the market has been going on since Jan. 26. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has fallen this January as well. The NASDAQ has fallen twice in the past three months. In that time the NASDAQ recovered from its loss in January but fell again in March.
Some business students at Milligan say not to panic about the decrease in prices.
“One of the major reasons for the expansions and contractions in the stock market is current events, like the housing crisis in 2008,” senior applied finance and accounting major Michaela Wolfe said. “When the changes become more dramatic is when to start paying attention more.”
Big global events like war and recessions are more examples on when to pay attention to the market.
“Investors’ views of what a company is worth and how well they are performing is changing,” senior accounting and economics major Andre Palpant said. “Companies’ stock prices change all the time depending on recent financial statements, news, new products or just overall perspective that the public has.”
Wolfe and Palpant both agree that now might be a good time to invest in the market.
“The younger you invest the more your money compounds and grows,” Palpant said.
“The stock market fell a couple months ago,” Wolfe said, “but is on the rise again, which means that, if an investor purchased a stock today, in a couple weeks, those shares would probably be worth more.”
However, senior business marketing and applied finance and accounting major Sam Bratton thinks investors should wait a little bit longer.
With stocks on the raise in April, there is still no way to predict the market.
“Past prices and historical data can be a hint as to what might happen in the future, but in no way does it guarantee any specific future movements,” Wolfe said.