Fears are running high due to the rising COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected that this will continue to have an impact on the mindset of investors, and thus, impact markets as is currently being seen on local and international markets.

However, the negative impacts on the market will only happen to a significant degree if we as investors allow it. While many see this global crisis as cause to panic-sell in some attempt to “salvage” their investment, the wise investor will recognise that this actually provides an opportunity to exercise patience.

Those who are looking to the media for financial answers during this time will find that they are often encouraged to act rather than be patient. It is important to highlight that there is a reason long-term investing is not equally promoted. And why is that?

Simply put, exercising patience is ‘boring’ and at times considered ‘cheap’. In other words, this narrative is not as easily sensationalised. More importantly, there are large segments of the financial industry that only turn a profit if you are spurred to act on these impulses.

As investors, we are all well aware that slow and steady wins the race. However, when times are chaotic, as we now see with the spread COVID-19, even the most robust among us might find themselves tempted to panic-sell.

On the bright side, the patient approach to investing has powerful evidence proving that a volatile market or global crises is no sound reason to resort to such a ‘solution’.

Author Jeremy Siegel, in his New York Times bestseller Stocks for the Long Run, highlighted the performance of equities from 1802 through 1997. The work found that throughout that time, all the volatility of the market taken into account, the returns on stocks remained more or less unchanged.

Here’s a direct quote from his findings: “Despite extraordinary changes in the economic, social, and political environment over the past two centuries, stocks have yielded between 6.6 and 7.2 per cent per year after inflation in all major sub-periods. The long-term perspective radically changes one’s view of the risk of stocks. The short-term fluctuations in the market, which loom so large to investors, have little to do with the long-term accumulation of wealth.”

From a short-term perspective, no one can tell you what is affecting stock prices. In the case that one has been absorbing the information saturating news networks, then all the clutter about why stocks are trading at any given moment can become overwhelming. In some cases, it might even affect good judgement.

But in the words of Warren Buffet, “Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases”. In other words, now is the time to truly make your money work for you. And what better way than to strengthen your investments for the future?

Gary Peart is CEO of Mayberry Investments Limited.