Read the letter a wealth manager sent to clients as the market tanked: 'This too shall bottom'

Courtesy Charles Weeks

Certified Financial Planner Charles Weeks.

• Charles Weeks is a Certified Financial Planner and wealth manager. As the stock market has plummeted over the last several weeks, he's been keeping in touch with his 100-plus clients, offering advice on what to do.
• In an email this week, he use an Oscar Wilde quote to explain that doing nothing is an investor's best option: "To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual."
• Even thought it may feel frustrating, he explained, it's the best thing for your financial future.
• SmartAsset's free tool can find a financial planner to help you take control of your money »

Charles Weeks is a Certified Financial Planner and the the founding partner of Barrister, a registered investment adviser. As he's watched the market drop over the past several weeks in response to fears about the spreading coronavirus, he's kept in touch with his clients and offered advice about how to weather the financial storm.

In an email this week, he shared an apt quote from Oscar Wilde, reminding his 100-plus clients that doing nothing is sometimes the best option in a crisis.

Here's what he wrote

"To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual." - Oscar Wilde

Today was another difficult day for equity markets as we continue to see fallout from the coronavirus. As difficult as it is to watch our portfolios lose value, we must keep in mind that this is part of our investing strategy.

We are not market-timers or traders, we are asset allocators who diversify and invest through the good times and the bad. What seems like doing nothing, is actually doing something.

We've rebalanced our portfolios to return to target weights, we are reinvesting dividends, and we are holding the line and not panicking.

While it feels much worse, the S&P 500 is now down 23.05% for the year and down over 11% for the past 12 months. Other indexes and specific stocks are down much more; year-to-date Disney is down 36.25%, Boeing is down 52.19%, Carnival is down 70.21%, and Occidental Petroleum is down 70.27%. Your portfolio is down less than all of them.

Our investment strategy, asset allocation, and diversification over long holding periods will, while difficult to implement in times like these, continue to offer us the best opportunity of achieving portfolio growth.

Like other panicked markets in the past, this too shall bottom, and when it does it usually whipsaws higher. Missing that recovery would dramatically impact future portfolio values.

As difficult as it is, we must seemingly do nothing at this point, while in reality we are doing exactly what we should be doing.

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