Stocks Are Crashing—That’s a Great Reason to Sit Tight

The red numbers in your 401(k) today might appear to vindicate warnings about an artificial-intelligence bubble and infirm economy. But don’t tilt your portfolio toward full pessimism just yet.

The S&P 500 was down 3% Monday, with the Nasdaq falling even further. Investors have been selling the year’s best performers, concerned that disappointing second-quarter results from big technology companies such as Alphabet , Tesla and Intel are a sign that the AI frenzy is a fad. Also, consumer discretionary stocks have become the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500, as lacklustre labour-market reports have raised worries that the Federal Reserve made a mistake by waiting until September to cut interest rates.

Overseas, the Stoxx Europe 600 closed almost 5% below where it was a week ago, whereas the Swiss franc, a common haven asset, is up roughly 4%. The most eye-popping moves happened in Asia, though, where the Nikkei 225 plunged 12.4% Monday in the worst trading session since Oct. 20, 1987—the day that followed Wall Street’s infamous Black Monday.

Yet it is precisely the breakneck speed with which Japanese equities tumbled that should give most investors a reason to remain calm.

As a guideline, sudden market selloffs are less dangerous than those that unfold progressively over time. This is because investors who rationally price in bad economic data often do so slowly, as it trickles in. Flash crashes, conversely, are often a sign that some tidbit of bad news made speculative bets go awry, triggering a cascade of trades, many of them automated.

Japan is particularly prone to such reversals because interest rates there are so low that many investors use them to fund higher-yielding investments in other currencies. Whenever markets get jittery, these “carry trades” tend to unravel, pushing up the yen and hitting Japanese stocks, many of which are diversified exporters that do better when global growth accelerates. Amplifying this tendency, Japanese stocks had this year become extremely popular among global investors.

The timing of the rout also points a finger at the Bank of Japan , which last week decided to tighten monetary policy for the first time in 17 years with the explicit goal of boosting the yen. Investors who rushed to cover their bets then triggered the reversal of stretched trades elsewhere, including in the U.S.

One of the most striking features of the S&P 500 for most of this year has been its extremely low volatility. Until July, the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, was at 2019 levels, and kept sliding lower even as investors made big changes to their monetary-policy forecasts.

While the VIX is often dubbed Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” the options contracts it is based on often themselves influence volatility. Whenever investors make bets against market swings, as they have recently in the U.S. by buying lots of structured products , the banks that sell those options are forced to take the other side. These hedges then suppress volatility in the stock market.

The flip side is that whenever a panic breaks through this feedback loop, volatility skyrockets. As the stock market opened Monday, the VIX hovered above 50, making it the highest weekly jump since the onset of the pandemic, though it later fell below 40.

This suggests the selloff is disproportionate, especially looking at the historical record: 87% of the time, investors who bought the S&P 500 on days when the VIX closed at 30 or higher ended up making money a year later.

The second-quarter reporting season has brought mostly good news, with 78% of the S&P 500 firms that have reported so far beating analysts’ earnings estimates—compared with a 74% 10-year average. Both AI-related companies and the rest are reporting net income above what was forecast a month ago. Overall, the U.S. economy still looks robust: The unemployment rate has gone up because the labor force has expanded.

Also, looking at S&P 500 returns since 1994 shows that selling based on the previous day’s falls is a bad strategy. Electing to move into cash after large monthly declines fared better, but still less well than sitting tight.

This isn’t to say that concerns about an economic slowdown or high tech valuations aren’t warranted. Investors have reasons to diversify away from the AI trend or swap more cyclically exposed stocks for more “defensive” names. Indeed, selling out of stocks after particularly exuberant days and months has historically tended to be a winning move. But hindsight is a terrible guide to investing your savings.

The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.

This is not a ranking by follower count. Follower count is a measure of distribution, not of quality. What follows is a ranking by substance — credentials, accuracy, community depth, and the quality of what an audience actually learns from following these accounts. The distinction matters, because the Australians acting on this content are making real financial decisions with real money.

1- Queenie Tan – Corporate Authorised Representative; Co-Founder & Director, Invest With Queenie & Billroo

There are finance influencers who talk about building wealth, and there are those who document it in real time with receipts. Queenie Tan belongs firmly in the second category. Starting from a $400-per-week income, Tan built her net worth past $1 million while publishing the actual numbers — income, savings rate, investment decisions — for an audience of more than 400,000 across platforms.

She is a Corporate Authorised Representative, co-founder of the personal finance app Billroo, and the author of a book that has become a practical reference for young Australians navigating ETFs, superannuation and property. What separates her from the crowded field of money educators is precision: she does not talk in principles when she can talk in percentages.

2- Alan Kohler – Editor-in-Chief, Eureka Report; Editor-in-Chief, InvestSMART Group; ABC News finance presenter, host of Inside Business.

If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.

His coverage of RBA decisions, market movements and economic policy is cited by podcasters, journalists and fund managers alike. He is not chasing virality. He does not need to.

3- Aleks Nikolic – Corporate lawyer; host, Big Swinging Stocks podcast

Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.

Shame around debt. Fear around market volatility. The limiting beliefs that stop people acting on what they already know. In a space where confidence is routinely performed, her candour is a genuine competitive advantage.

4- Bryce Leske & Alec Renehan – Equity Mates Media

Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.

The longevity is the credential. Equity Mates has operated through multiple market cycles, a global pandemic, and a generational shift in how Australians engage with investing — and its audience has grown through all of it. When the hosts speak, their listeners know they have been paying attention for years.

5- The Lazy CEO – CEO & Founder, Showpo; Shark Tank Australia investor

The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.

Her content focuses on business finance and wealth building, and the active comment sections are the clearest possible evidence that her audience does not merely scroll past.

6- Tash Invests – Founder, Tash Lends; Forbes Australia 30 Under 30

Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.

Having bought her first property at twenty-two and grown her documented net worth past $1 million, she has become the primary reference point for young Australians trying to understand what building wealth on a moderate income genuinely looks like. The specificity is the product.

7- David Scutt – APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group

The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.

When he discusses foreign exchange movements or ASX dynamics, it is not because he has read about them. It is because he has traded them.

8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator

The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.

Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.

9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest

Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.

The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.

10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News

Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.

Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.

That combination, decades of editorial experience, an active broadcast presence, and a body of published work, is what makes her commentary carry weight beyond any single platform or post.

The common thread across this list is not follower count or platform presence. It is that each creator has built an audience willing to act on what they say, and for the Australians making financial decisions off the back of this content, that trust is the only thing that actually matters.

Stocks Are Crashing—That’s a Great Reason to Sit Tight

The sudden selloff in Japanese equities and a surge in the VIX suggest the current rout is being exaggerated by trend chasers

The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.