< Previous%Locally SourcedLocally Sourced Participants in this past winter’s youth dribblers basketball program pose for a picture. Area Eagle Scout donating flag retirement box West Allegheny junior Alex Kot is in the process of facilitating the donation of a flag retirement box for his Eagle Scout project to North Fayette Township. At the time of this writing, plans are to install the box in the lobby of the North Fayette Community Center. Kot, a member of Boy Scout Troop 248 in Oakdale, got the idea for the project from Shaun Leslie, superintendent of parks for North Fayette Township. After speaking with Leslie, Kot set about raising $810 for the project. He did so by edging lawns in his Walden Woods community in exchange for donations. The funds helped purchase the box along with a statue and outdoor bench that have both been placed in Donaldson Park. Worn flags deposited in the box will be disposed of in a respectful manner. Chroma Graphics assisted Kot with the box’s vinyl wrap and a plaque that will hang alongside it. The statue and bench were purchased at a discount from Shawn Inverso and Don Trent from Home Craft True Value Castle Shannon Pittsburgh. Basketball boosters host another successful K-8 program The West Allegheny Basketball Boosters once again hosted its youth dribblers program for students in grades K-8 this past winter. The program, which instructs grade-schoolers on ball handling skills and the rules of the game, attracted 120 participants. Alex Kot (pictured above) donated the statue and bench pictured below to North Fayette Township. He is also in the process of donating this flag retirement box. New farm preserved through farm preservation program The Torre Acres Farm in North Fayette Township became the latest local farm to join the Allegheny County Farmland Preservation Program in January. The program places an easement on a farm that prevents it from ever being developed. In exchange, the owners of the farm are awarded a sum of money representing the difference between what the farm is worth to developers versus what the land is worth as farmland. The program is part of a state-wide initiative that’s helped thousands of Pennsylvania farm owners stay on their farms. The Torre Farm is just the latest in a number of local farms that have joined the program, including, notably, the Janoski Farm in Clinton and the Antel Farm, which sits adjacent to the Torre Farm. Much like other farms preserved under the program, the 180-acre Torre Farm, which is located in McDonald, is family- owned and operated. The farm raises horses and hay for horses. It’s also home to Pony Palooza Equine Education. As well, the farm sells rough-cut lumber for milling and firewood. It is operated by Steven Torre, his sister, Carrie Torre, and their family. CONTENT SUBMITTED The Torre Farm in North Fayette Township recently joined the Allegheny County Farmland Preservation Program. 10 • Allegheny West Magazine • April/May 2020N Your Schools Your Schools Robinson Township Christian School STORIES AND PHOTOS SUBMITTED BY ROBINSON TOWNSHIP CHRISTIAN SCHOOL Robotics club closes out strong season On Feb. 21, the robotics club team competed at the regional Vex Robotics Competition at North Allegheny Senior High School. This was the second consecutive year that the team competed in the competition. Forty- three high school teams from across the region designed their own robots using exceptional mechanical, electrical and programming skills. The competition involved an autonomous period followed by a period in which a team member controlled the robot via an rf-linked remote control. Working under team captain and senior Nate Brown, the team banded together to pull off a commendable performance with help from Brown’s crafty driving skills and a simple, yet effective, automation routine. Ultimately, the team lost a very close match in the elimination round but they are already looking forward to putting everything that they learned to use next year. The robotics club will meet through the summer months to begin preparing for next year and future competitions. RTCS welcomes new faculty member Robinson Township Christian School recently welcomed Dr. Gayathri Withers to the school community. Withers teaches biology, chemistry, physics and Earth science. She comes to the school with more than 40 years of teaching experience and after having taught at both the collegiate and high school level. The education bug bit Withers at a very young age. Inspired by her father, a mathematics professor, Withers became a third grade teacher’s helper and didn’t stop there. She went on to earn her master’s degree in chemistry from The Indian Institute of Technology in her native country of India. She then traveled to the U.S., where she earned a master’s degree in science education from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in NMR spectroscopy. She has worked as the science program coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh and in the chemistry department at CMU as a researcher. Prior to coming to Robinson Township Christian School, Withers taught at Trinity Christian School in Pittsburgh and more recently was a long-term substitute for Pittsburgh Public Schools. “I really love the small family atmosphere at RTCS,” she said. “I get to be like a second grandma to the students. I enjoy mentoring and supporting them as they grow into adults. I get to teach them the things that I’ve learned throughout my life.” When she’s not teaching, Withers can be found curled up with a good book or spending time with her four children and five grandchildren. Robotics club members Nathaniel Brown and Jimmy Kelsey competed in the regional Vex Robotics Competition at North Allegheny High School in February. Dr. Gayathri Withers April/May 2020 • www.awmagazine.com • 11STORY AND PHOTOS SUBMITTED % New in Town New in Town In 1979, Jim Meyers opened his own plumbing business in Oakdale. Six years later, in 1985, he opened the landmark store that sits along Oakdale Road not far from the entrance to McKee Elementary School. Along the way, Jim’s son, Matt, was always watching and learning. It became a foregone conclusion that he would one day help run the business his dad had built. Earlier this year, that plan finally came to fruition. Matt and his wife, Alexandra, are now helping Matt’s parents run Jim Meyers Plumbing, which is known as Jim Meyers and Son Plumbing and Excavation. Matt is steering the business that his dad built as it tackles everything from large commercial jobs to leaky faucets. “It’s been exciting,” says Matt. “Obviously, it comes with more stress but I’ve been handling it pretty well just from watching my dad while growing up and seeing how he’s taken on the ups and downs of the trade.” Matt grew up in Hankey Farms and attended West Allegheny High School, where he wrestled and played ice hockey. He graduated in 2001 and right away went to work for his dad while taking classes through the Associated Master Plumbers of Allegheny County. Three years ago, he went to work for Plumbers Union Local #27 before coming back to take on a new partnership with his parents. Not much has changed with regards to the business. Rather, Matt is continuing to expand upon the business’ services, including its retail center and 5,000 square-foot bathroom remodel showroom. There, visitors can walk through displays and get ideas for their own bathrooms. The business works with one of the best contractors in the area to offer full-service bathroom remodels. At the same time, the business has been expanding its excavation work and recently completed jobs for a number of big names, including UPMC. Matt, though, says that they’re also always just as happy to take on a running toilet. “Pretty much anything that has to do with plumbing,” says Matt. Through the end of this year, customers who mention this article and like Jim Meyers and Son Plumbing and Excavation on Facebook and Instagram can get $10 off their next service call. For more, visit www. meyersplumbingpittsburgh.com or call (412) 787-7805. Visit their showroom is located at 1561 Oakdale Road, just down the street from the entrance to McKee Elementary School. Local plumbing business transitioning to next generation 12 • Allegheny West Magazine • April/May 2020 Matt and Alexandra Meyers (below) are now running Jim Meyers and Son Plumbing and Excavation with Matt’s parents, Jim and Sue (above). Pictured at left is one of the displays in the company’s showroom at 1561 Oakdale Road.y > Learning Curves Learning Curves Do you feel like a tin man or woman in need of an oilcan so you can lubricate every joint and jump in the Fountain of Youth? That was me a year ago, before I started micro-circulation therapy. Every day my legs were as tight as tree trunks and I had severe discomfort, including cold hands and feet, along with a bundle of other symptoms. I am always working to improve my health and learning more about health and wellness. I believe it’s a constant journey to find out what works for both me and my clients. In my case, I was getting massages every other week and a regular chiropractic session. I even changed my diet. These all helped with some of the issues I was experiencing but I still felt like something deeper was going on inside my body. “If only I could get a full body scan of some kind,” I thought, and that’s when I remembered a test I had undergone years ago called thermography. Thermography is a physiologic test, which demonstrates thermal patterns in skin temperature. Results may either be normal or indicate disease or another abnormality. Thermography provides you with an image you can see in real time and can indicate areas that are afflicted or have improved. This knowledge enabled me to know what was working for me and to make changes to my personal health goals and treatments. On March 10 of last year, I had a full-body thermography session and learned that I had a peripheral vascular insufficiency - in other words, poor blood flow. A registered nurse encouraged me to learn about microcirculation, a type of therapy that enhances blood flow and encourages the body to heal itself. The sessions are done fully clothed while lying or sitting on a mat that enhances microcirculation. Movement of blood at the capillary level brings oxygen and nutrients to the cells and tissues. At the same time, toxins and wastes (like carbon dioxide) are removed. I thought, “Why not give it a few months, it sounds like what I need.” On April 20, I started to use the microcirculation device at home before introducing it to my clients. After two months and a lot of research, I felt I had increased energy. The cold feeling in my feet and hands seemed to decrease, along with the numbness in my fingers. I no longer felt like a tin woman in need of an oilcan. From July to August, I started to feel phenomenal, with increased endurance, more energy and less discomfort. I began to be more active, too, especially with my family. Now I‘m riding a bike and hiking with them, which I had never done prior. I felt so phenomenal that, on Aug. 22, I had another thermography session on my legs to see if my results would show up visually. They did! Thinking back to the microcirculation training class I attended last year, I wanted to share this story. At that training session, I felt like I was in the movie “Cocoon,” watching older attendees demonstrate how they felt younger as they did squats, jumps and stretches. It made me smile. Now I realize that I feel younger, too. Do your joints need oiled? Do you want to feel like you’ve found the Fountain of Youth? Check out one of our upcoming webinars and find out if microcirculation is for you! BY RENEE SWASEY, OWNER, ALLEGHENY MUSCLE THERAPY AND MASSAGE Is microcirculation the key to feeling younger? Renee Swasey owns and operates Allegheny Muscle Therapy and Massage in Imperial. For more on their upcoming events, see below, or visit www.alleghenymuscle.massagetherapy.com. Call them at (724) 695-5300. The above photo shows Renee Swasey’s thermagrophy prior to microcirculation and the below photo shows her results after trying microcirculation for five months. April/May 2020 • www.awmagazine.com • 13y > Learning Curves Learning Curves Michele P. Conti is an estate planning and elder law attorney. Conti attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Oxford University and Duquesne University School of Law. She received her LL.M. in taxation from Villanova University. She can be reached at (724) 784-0239 or michele@contilawpgh.com. BY MICHELE P. CONTI Planning ahead for a blended family It is likely that you or someone you know is on their second, third, or maybe even fourth marriage. Though they have found happiness more than once in their life, there are many legal complications that exist with a blended family. One such difficulty is determining who receives that person’s assets upon passing. Is it the spouse, the children from a prior relationship, the spouse’s kids or someone else? The idea of “yours, mine and ours” can fracture families. When we work with clients who have a blended family, we stress the fact that deciding who receives their wealth upon their death is essential. The challenge is satisfying everyone involved. If they do not plan correctly and view the whole picture - including retirement accounts and life insurance policies - they may unknowingly disinherit someone, whether they meant to do so or not. All too often, a former spouse also remains as the named beneficiary on an account. Regardless of what a will or trust says, the beneficiary designations trump all others. Therefore, we must be proactive when reviewing a person’s assets or else everyone, except the former spouse, will be unhappy. Another error that sometimes occurs is when a spouse names their current spouse as the primary beneficiary and their children as equal contingent beneficiaries. This is often done so that everyone will receive something. However, in this situation, the spouse receives all of the assets and is free to act as they wish. The spouse can spend all of the assets or even change the contingent beneficiaries upon receipt of the money. When a retirement account is involved, the surviving spouse inherits the account of the deceased while the contingent beneficiaries go by the wayside, even upon the surviving spouse’s death. Oftentimes, people also assume that their spouse receives everything upon their death simply because they are married. Others assume that their children receive the bulk of their estate because they are related by blood. Each of these assumptions is wrong. In Pennsylvania, when there is no will or beneficiary designation, the commonwealth provides us with the following chart to determine which beneficiary receives what percent: An easy remedy is to name both the spouse and children as beneficiaries on such an account and dole out percentages rather than an outright distribution to one person. Remarried couples often use a trust as the vehicle to spell out their wishes. If the intention is to provide income for the life of the surviving spouse, we can name the children as beneficiaries. The tricky part is naming a successor trustee. Without proper planning, the plan could fail, which is why oftentimes a corporate fiduciary is involved so that the assets remain consistent and continue to grow. What can you do if you have blended family? We can discuss your particular situation and determine the best option for you and the families involved. This may include a postnuptial agreement, a spendthrift trust or even a bloodline trust, depending on your overall wishes. There is no right answer, but there are a lot of options. We spend so much time and money planning for things like weddings, holidays and vacations, but let’s take some time to also plan for your loved ones’ futures. Doing so will ensure that the family will not be fractured upon your passing. 14 • Allegheny West Magazine • April/May 2020Mia A. Kovacs, CFP®, is a vice president and a financial consultant with Bill Few Associates. She can be reached at (412) 630-6041 or at mkovacs@billfew.com. y > Learning Curves Learning Curves SUBMITTED BY MIA A. KOVACS, CFP®, BILL FEW ASSOCIATES Mia A. Kovacs Emotions can aid our basic survival. They can motivate us to take action, encourage us to avoid danger and provide us with the empathy necessary to create relationships. Regarding financial markets, though, emotions most certainly do not help and yet, the markets move with the mass’ emotional responses. Driven by two primary emotions, fear and greed, the markets experience various levels of volatility. Of late, fear is the primary driver causing the markets to experience sharp declines. However, if you can rise above the prevailing mood of the masses and follow the fundamentals of investing over the long run, you will succeed and even benefit from market volatility. Investors and the market hate the unknown and the coronavirus is a big unknown. We don’t know how many people the virus will affect and when the virus will be contained. We don’t know how business, government and individual earnings will ultimately be impacted. What we do know is that the unknown has caused sharp market declines in the past and a large part of those sharp market declines are caused by emotional investors’ reactions. Fundamental #1: Do not try to time the markets. Watching your investment dollars fall is painful and, naturally, we try to avoid pain. However, you cannot time the markets. Ultimately, an emotional investor will end up selling at a loss and buying back in at a premium. The concept of “buy low, sell high” does not register with our emotional intellect. So, despite all the evidence that staying invested is the only way to contend with volatility, some investors will enviably pull out of the market, locking in their losses. Keep in mind that, in the long term, the market moves upward. The market, however, doesn’t simply go up in a straight line. It can feel that way, especially after a 10-year bull market, but it doesn’t. For example, the S&P 500 has averaged 10.2% annual returns over the past 25 years while simultaneously experiencing 10% or higher declines in 15 of those past 25 years. Volatility is normal. When market declines happen rapidly, it is easier to see the decline and hard not be emotional. However, the only way to gain back your losses is to stay in the market. By jumping out during times of volatility, you lock in your losses and miss the biggest market recovery days. Fundamental #2: Trust your allocation. Keep in mind how you are allocated for your own time horizon and risk tolerance. Your allocation is how much you have in the stock portion versus the bond portion versus the cash portion of your financial portfolio. All of these types of investments grow and shrink differently as the market fluctuates. Your time horizon is how long you have until you start taking income from your invested assets. For many, this is the first year of retirement. Your allocation should change with time, gradually getting more conservative as you near retirement and start relying on your investments for income. Historically, the stock market’s recovery takes an average of 4.4 years. Therefore, the younger you are, the more appropriate a heavily weighted stock portfolio is, as you have ample time to ride out market declines. As an older investor, you too can ride out market declines with a properly allocated portfolio. If you are currently taking income from your investments, your account should be allocated so that you have approximately five years’ worth of income in the bond portion of your portfolio. The bond portion is a more stable section where you can continue to draw your income during market declines. Your risk tolerance is the amount of risk that you are comfortable taking on as an investor. For example, if the market’s current volatility is causing you to lose sleep at night, you may not be properly allocated for your own risk tolerance. Risk tolerance is individualized and can warrant a more conservative allocation for a younger investor or a more aggressive allocation for an older investor than what statistics and probability dictate. Fundamental #3: Focus on what you can control. Keep in mind your overall goals. If you are holding steady and properly allocated but still worried, look at what you can control. Focus on your savings. Look at your bills and how you are spending. Perhaps you have multiple streaming services and cable. Perhaps you are ordering in more than cooking. Consider ways to cut back during times of market decline and increase your savings. As Warren Buffet once said, “The market is the most efficient mechanism anywhere in the world for transferring wealth from impatient people to patient people.” When it comes to investing, resist the urge to act emotionally and be patient. This is when a financial planner can give you the guidance you need to maintain a long-term focus. A financial planner can help you assess and monitor your goals, time frame and risk tolerance. You can’t control market volatility, but you can reduce its impact by setting realistic goals and time horizons while diversifying your portfolio. This is a time for fundamentals, not fear April/May 2020 • www.awmagazine.com • 15lLegislative Update Legislative Update COVID-19 response I am closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and working with county, state, and federal officials to help protect our communities. Updated COVID-19 resources and news can be found at: senatoriovino.com/covid19. Subscribe to my semi-weekly COVID-19 email updates at senatoriovino.com/subscribe. BY STATE SEN. PAM IOVINO Focus on mental health: improving access, reducing stigma Many of our fellow Pennsylvanians face mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety. According to a study from the University of Southern California, approximately one million adult Pennsylvanians struggled with serious psychological distress at least once in 2015. Of those reporting distress, more than 27 percent had an unmet need for mental health care. Of those expressing an unmet need, 42 percent could not afford to seek care. That is why I applaud Governor Tom Wolf’s “Reach Out PA: Your Mental Health Matters” initiative that will study how our Commonwealth can design policies that increase access to treatment and reduce the stigma associated with mental health. With that goal in mind, on Feb. 10 I co-hosted with secretary of health, Dr. Rachel Levine, one of the roundtables being held around the state at Robert Morris University. The focus of this roundtable was a discussion on maternal mental health. We gathered experts in the field to better understand the scope, barriers and treatments for maternal mental health. If left untreated, maternal mental health disorders such as postpartum depression can be devastating for the mother and family and can have long-term health impacts on the child. The good news is that effective treatments are available, and the insight and expertise we heard at the roundtable will support efforts to develop the programs and improve access to help all mothers and their children live happy and healthy lives. Continuing my efforts to address improving mental health in Pennsylvania, I met with Nicole Fedeli, Director of Public Policy and Engagement for UPMC, to discuss the variety of services offered by UPMC Western Behavioral Health, including mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment. I was especially impressed to learn that their resolve Crisis Services Center, free to all residents of Allegheny County, has responded to more than 119,000 requests for mental health intervention. State Sen. Pam Iovino attended a maternal mental health round table at Robert Morris University (top and bottom left) and met with UPMC to discuss mental health resources. Around the district The new year has gotten off to a busy start both in Harrisburg and the 37th Senatorial District. In February, Gov. Tom Wolf presented his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. His proposed budget focuses on some of my top priorities, including education, workforce development and public safety. I also was pleased to see no new taxes in the proposal. As a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, I have spent a good amount of time over the past few weeks in Harrisburg for the budget hearings listening to testimony from agency secretaries defending their programs, policies and funding needs in this budget. Over the coming months, I look forward to continuing the work of finalizing the details of the 2020 budget and advocating for investments in the working families, businesses and communities of the 37th Senatorial District. Read on for more of my recent work to benefit our communities and our Commonwealth! Funding school safety improvements at West Allegheny School District West Allegheny School District will receive a $40,000 grant to invest in school safety and security. Congratulations to West Allegheny School District on their strong application meriting this competitive grant funding. West Allegheny’s grant was part of a $60 million package distributed statewide - a funding package I was proud to support in last year’s budget. Keeping our schools safe is prudent and necessary to ensure they are able to maintain facilities for their important work of educating our students. State Sen. Pam Iovino represents Pennsylvania’s 37th Senatorial District. Her Robinson Township district office is located at 5996 Steubenville Pike and can be reached at (412) 788-2967. Visit her online at www.senatoriovino.com. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @senatoriovino. Krystal Biotech groundbreaking On Jan. 24, I joined other elected public officials and Krish Krishnan, CEO/chairman of Krystal Biotech, to break ground on Krystal Biotech’s new pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Findlay Township. The plant is expected to create 225 new jobs after being fully built-out. This groundbreaking is a continuation of the airport area’s economic development under the leadership of Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis, and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. It marks a return to our region’s strong and proud manufacturing roots that will bring new opportunity to our economy. State Sen. Pam Iovino 16 • Allegheny West Magazine • April/May 2020lLegislative Update Legislative Update BY STATE REP. VALERIE GAYDOS State Rep. Valerie Gaydos Coronavirus update With the changes to daily life recommended or ordered in regards to COVID-19, we expect many hardworking families and small businesses to be affected. The legislature is working hard to address some of these issues and we are committed to doing our part in keeping our communities healthy. My staff will be available in our district office during regular, but possibly limited, office hours. We recommend that constituents call ahead to (412) 262-3780 to confirm office hours. For updates on how you can do your part to stay healthy, please visit my website at www.RepGaydos.com and sign up for my weekly emails for the latest information and resources. No family should have to fear for their child’s safety at school. From the moment our children step onto the school bus until they return home at the end of the day, it is the responsibility of our school districts to protect them from harm. That is why I am pleased to announce that four local school districts have received more than $350,000 in state grant funding to improve their security infrastructure and enact safety protocols that will ensure the wellbeing of our area’s children. West Allegheny School District received $40,000 in meritorious grant funding for improvements to the district’s school safety plan, including technological upgrades that may include the purchase of emergency communications equipment or other security-related technology that the school board deems necessary. Avonworth School District received $35,000 in meritorious grant funding that will be used for security planning and the purchase of security-related technology, which may include metal detectors, electronic locksets, deadbolts, trauma kits, theft control devices and more. The details of Avonworth’s security planning and purchase of security-related technology will be based on its safety needs as identified by the school’s board of directors. Moon Area School District received $45,000 in meritorious grant funding to be put toward risk assessment and violence prevention curricula as well as comprehensive school safety plans, specialized staff training programs and expanded access to support services and behavioral health care for students and staff. Quaker Valley School District received $236,450 in meritorious and competitive grants that will be used to implement comprehensive staff training programs in the use of positive behavior supports, de-escalation techniques and appropriate responses to student behavior that may require immediate intervention. Additionally, these funds will be used for the installation of security-related technology and for improvements to the district’s school safety plan. Altogether, these grants total $356,450 in critical funding that local schools can use to immediately ramp up their security efforts. This funding represents an essential investment in the wellbeing and security of our children and will go a long way toward ensuring our schools are safe havens for learning. Funding from these grants was awarded by the School Safety and Security Committee, a 17-member group within the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The committee was created as part of Act 44 of 2018, a comprehensive school safety law passed in 2018. Among the committee’s primary duties is the distribution both meritorious and competitive grants. Meritorious grants were awarded to each school that applied for funding, whereas only select schools that applied for competitive grants were chosen. This funding cycle, the committee awarded $18.7 million in meritorious grants across the state, as well as $33.8 million in competitive grants. Local schools receive grants to improve safety State Rep. Valerie Gaydos represents Pennsylvania’s 44th District. Her office is located at 1009 Beaver Grade Road in Moon Township. Subscribe to her emails at www.repgaydos.com and follow her on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/RepGaydos. April/May 2020 • www.awmagazine.com • 1718 • Allegheny West Magazine • April/May 2020y > Learning Curves Learning Curves April/May 2020 • www.awmagazine.com • 19 1. Focusing on the short term – Markets can go up or down a lot on any one day. In most years, a 3% or greater move happens several times. But over long periods, do you know what the average daily change in the market is? 0.03%. If you keep your eyes glued to the TV, you probably think the market is a wild casino that’s no better than Powerball. However, if you step back and focus on the long term, you can see that stock markets create wealth, over time, despite all the zigs and zags. 2. Looking for news articles that proclaim doom - People have a natural bias to look for information that confirms their point of view. If the market declines and you read a headline like “Market Crash Will Rival 1987’s Massive Drop,” you can’t help but start to buy into the idea that bad times are ahead. But check the track record of whoever is forecasting that massive fall in the market. Chances are, that same person made a similar call last year or two years ago and was completely wrong. Sure, if one keeps on making the same prediction, one is eventually going to be right, but very few, if any, can routinely call when markets will go down. 3. Selling your stocks because it feels good - No one likes pain, whether it’s physical or financial. Opening an account statement and seeing that you lost money hurts. “If only I sold everything last month - I’d be so much better off,” you might think. The problem is that almost no one is able to time when to get back into stocks. If the market climbs higher after you have sold and you are still sitting on the sidelines, that’s when the real panic starts to set in. At that point, you may never feel capable of getting back in, a potentially debilitating move. 4. Falling for click bait - Many popular news organizations now write headlines that are designed to create a psychological compulsion to click on the article. This is known as “click bait.” Headlines are often written to provoke anxiety because research shows that these types of articles are shared more than moderate spins. All those jilting headlines can make you think the world is coming to an end when, in reality, they are more based on marketing than substance. 5. Convincing yourself “this time is different” - Stock markets, despite their historical tendency to go up more than down, do go through corrections quite frequently. Over the last 115 years, markets have dipped 15%, or more every two years on average. While it is certainly possible that the stock market going down means the end of the world is upon us, if you’d thought that in the past, you’d be wrong. Not confident in your financial plan and investments after the COVID-19 market sell off? Looking for help to get organized? Amy and Brad can be contacted for a no-obligation retirement planning and investment review. Call them at (412) 633-1709 or email Amy.Riley@hefren.com. Five ways to panic during a market sell-off SUBMITTED BY BRAD COLVIN AND AMY RILEY, FINANCIAL ADVISORS, HEFREN-TILLOTSON Brad Colvin Amy Riley Screens flashing red is scary for anyone invested in stocks. Fearful news stories can alarm investors and lead them to do things that are not in their best interest. Are you considering freaking out, selling stocks and potentially marring your long-term finances? Well, here are five panic-inducing behaviors you should avoid:Next >