This interview with KARE11-TV in Minneapolis helps explain why one should not worry about recent stock market volatility.

Also discussed during the interview but not included for space reasons: this is a good time to look for investment opportunities. The stock market was over-inflated and needed to come down for investors to find more realistically valued opportunities once again.

Another point to consider: Each of the three major stock indexes the news media has been talking about in recent days reached their highest points in history only three months ago.

One last bit of perspective: If you had invested in the NASDAQ composite index two years ago, your investment would still be up more than 19 percent even if the index closed down for 2018.  If you had invested in Unitedhealth Group two years ago, your investment would still be up 47 percent as of Dec. 26 (and up 214 percent from five years ago). Conversely, two of Minnesota’s worst performing stocks this year (and when compared with two and five year runs) are General Mills (down 36 percent YTD and 39 percent in two years) and Polaris, down 41 percent this year and 10 percent verses two years ago.