By Dan Noel, a financial adviser in Moncton, New Brunswick:

A stock market crisis is a double-edged sword - or as the ancient Chinese proverb defines crisis, “danger plus opportunity.” Watching your investment portfolio dropping in value, no matter how little or much you have saved, creates ever-increasing anxiety as we watch our gains disappear and slowly erode the original investment, creating a certainty in our mind that this all will go to zero.

But is it really time to run for the hills or does that second part of the definition of crisis hold true?