The drumbeat of bearishness is reaching a crescendo. Scary, attention-grabbing headlines have become the norm in a market overwhelmed by fear after U.S. stocks kicked off 2016 with the worst calendar-year beginning ever. And it isn’t as if 2015’s returns were anything to be cheerful about.
Regular readers on MarketWatch, for example, have been subjected to headlines ranging from it isn’t a good time to buy to the more extreme calls to sell everything.
But for average investors with a retirement account or 401(k) plan, those recommendations aren’t exactly helpful, according to Michael Batnick, who runs financial blog The Irrelevant Investor and is director of research at Ritholtz Wealth Management.
“For a lay person, the ‘sell everything’ type.........
