Area investors weigh moves during swing

From local 401(k) investors to area financial pros, the 311-point Dow Jones index decline elicited a range of reactions.

Some brokers said real investor fallout cannot be gauged until investors over the weekend figure out what the falling market means to them. Monday will be the better test, they said.

Nevertheless, at Blue Oak Financial in Itasca, broker Sean Gay was busy Thursday taking calls.

"I did a ton of calls today," Gay said late Thursday afternoon. "I did 17 different trades for people."

More typical was the investor who realized their 401(k) plans may have lost value, but they didn't lose money if they did not sell, instead waiting until the market comes back.

Cheri Dial, a financial adviser at Edward Jones Inc. in Elk Grove Village, said she didn't receive any "panic calls," but if she did, she knew what she would say.

"I would tell the them (2.3 percent on the S&P 500 index) isn't that much in the scheme of things," Dial said.

Itasca-based Heritage Capital Management founder David Moenning was a seller on Thursday.

He manages "The top 10 portfolio," which picks the top stock in 10 sectors. On Monday, the portfolio carried 10 stocks; it fell to 7 on Thursday. Moenning is a technical trader and the numbers tell him to trade.

"It is usually silly to sell into any panic," said Moenning, citing a traditional trading maxim. "But my guess is this market has room to go down."

In Barrington, fixed-income research and brokerage firm Arbor Research & Trading Inc. is headed by James Bianco. He thinks the market probably will not fall 10 percent from its high, a classic full-blown correction.

"At worst the market could go down another 5 percent," Bianco said. "In six months, I wouldn't be surprised if markets are back hitting records."

Thursday's downturn also touched some of this area's largest employers.

Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp., Northfield-based Kraft Foods Inc., Lake Forest-based Fortune Brands Inc. and Chicago-based Exelon Corp. each lost more than 4 percent of their market value.