Financial markets around the world have taken a beating over the last several deals because of fears surrounding COVID-19 and a fight over oil supply limits between Russia and OPEC.

Just yesterday the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) crossed into a bear market as Coronavirus was declared a pandemic. 

A bear market happens when the market takes a loss of 20 per cent from a recent high. 

Steve Cook, Investment Advisor with Raymond James in Cochrane says there's a lot of uncertainty right now which has markets majorly affected.

"Unmeasurable, unidentifiable risks that are related to pandemics lead to market volatility that leads to a fear factor that comes out naturally in humans. The truth is nobody really knows what the impact the Coronavirus really has especially since the information coming from China could be suggested as suspect.The markets are down and there's a great deal of fear out there right now and oil is faring even worse which is not great for Alberta." 

Cook says it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

"We haven't had a sell off since December of 2018 and it's been pretty much a ride up since then. And then the news flow with Coronavirus and the oil drama has all concentrated on this to create this current downward trend in the market."

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 688 points or 4.6 per cent at 14,270.09 on Wednesday.

It's the same thing south of the border, the U.S. stock markets also moved into bear market territory with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 1,464.94 points or 5.9 per cent.

The general consensus from investors when there's volatility is that it's not worth panicking over especially if you're not close to retirement. You can weather the storm and your savings should bounce back by the time you need them.