Right now, financial planners are just as scared of an economic crisis as the rest of us. If you work with a financial planner, he or she may be offering up plenty of advice right now that majorly differs from what they’ve told you before. Unfortunately, a lot of that advice may be bad — based on getting your cash out of the market as fast as possible.

In good economic times, financial planning can be relatively easy: find some investments with growth potential, sit back and watch the cash roll in. I’m over simplifying, but keeping a client from losing money in an economic downturn can be much harder.

Doing Their Best

Financial planners are in a pretty tough position when investments dip even a little bit: if a client opens a monthly statement and sees that his investment’s value has dropped by even a small amount, his financial planner will be hearing about it. So financial planners have to make sure that their clients believe that they’re doing everything they can think of. In a down market, that might involve moving money in and out of investments rapidly.

It isn’t your financial planner’s fault if market prices drop the value of your investments. But if your financial planner knows his business, even a major change in the market won’t require a lot of changes in your portfolio. Your investments should be based on your financial goals and needs — and those investments should be fundamentally sound. Sure, if you’re invested in the banking and credit industries, you may need to be making a few changes. Your investments should, hopefully, be diversified. That means not all of your money should be invested in those two industries — and those other investments should be fine, even if the price has dropped a bit.

Keep In Touch

A good financial planner probably isn’t calling you every day or every week to get permission to change your portfolio. That doesn’t mean that you should keep in touch. One of the services you pay a financial planner for is explaining how market changes will affect you and your investments. Your financial planner is a good source of reassurance about your investments — ask why they’re still good and your planner should be able to explain why those companies are still solid.

It’s worth the effort to make sure that you understand every step your financial planner takes. You may not be able to locate those steps on your own — if you could, why would you want a financial planner? — but it’s perfectly possible to understand the logic behind a particular set of investments. If your financial planner can’t explain why a certain set of investments better matches your goals than another, perhaps it’s time to research another financial planner. Give your financial planner a chance to talk you through things first, though. It’s easy to overreact when you are shocked by the current value of your investments.