Comfortable investors now anxious

“I think for me, it was kind of a wake-up call,” Jay Healy, president of Century Wealth Management LLC, said of the events of 9/11. “Everybody had just waltzed through the 1990s,” he said. Indeed, that period has been called the Great Moderation, when the market and economy grew nicely without much volatility. “Everything was going great, and then we're attacked on our own shores,” said Mr. Healy, who runs a small family office with about $150 million in assets. “It was the 180-degree turn.” The comfort and security evaporated, he said. “One minute, everyone was an Internet stock picker. The next minute, they were afraid to pick up their mail because of [the] anthrax” scare, Mr. Healy recalled. The fallout from 9/11 also made people question the safety of financial institutions, he said. The attacks affected the bank payments system, and some clients had to use their investment accounts for cash. Meanwhile, the stock market remained closed for six days before reopening with a huge sell-off. Mr. Healy saw his clients become “more introspective, more family-oriented” after the 2001 tragedy. “They were less money-oriented and more patriotic instead of thinking about, "What's in it for me?'” he said. But for some, those lessons were forgotten within a few years. “From being day traders in 1996, people became real estate flippers in 2006,” Mr. Healy said. Then the financial crisis hit, and the lessons learned from 9/11 suddenly became relevant again. “I think we've gone full circle again on those issues,” he said.