On Monday, after China had yet another stock market conniption, dropping around 9 percent, Vanguard had to enlist the help of its “Swiss Army” to help field the calls from concerned investors.

The sudden, but not unexpected, drop in the Chinese stock exchange first sent the European financial markets and then the key U.S. exchanges plummeting as well, as they reacted badly to the news from the East, with the Dow Jones dropping over 1,000 points when it opened.

As a result, thousands of investors leapt to the nearest phone to call Vanguard to see what was happening and to check on their portfolio investments. The sheer volume of calls would have crippled most companies, but Malvern-based Vanguard is always prepared. When its call center gets overwhelmed it has a volunteer program in place to react quickly and effectively in a crisis.

This group, known as the ‘Swiss Army’ consists of people from across all division of the company ranging from portfolio managers to executives, has extensive training in answering investor’s calls and allows Vanguards clients to get the answers and assurances they need as quickly as humanly possible.  

The message the company was sending was ‘remain calm’. With nearly $3 trillion dollars of investor’s money under its wing and the manager of the nation’s largest mutual fund, Vanguard is well versed in the whims of the market and quickly saw the situation for what it really was, Monday morning blues. With China falling first and Europe second, by the time the U.S. markets opened the global financial markets looked like a disaster and traders and investors alike panicked.

In reality, most companies have been well aware of the issues in China for some time now and have made appropriate contingencies. This means that, despite the knee jerk reaction of the markets, there is little need to worry that most U.S. and global companies are in any significant risk. Vanguards calm voice, backed up by its Swiss Army pointed this out to its investors with a set of key but straightforward pieces of advice.

The first is that market corrections happen in any market and as a long term investor swings in the market have little to no impact, in the longer term value of an investment. The second is to remove emotion from investing despite what the news is telling you. Most crisis situations such as Monday’s are temporary and as long as a portfolio is diversified, relatively irrelevant.

These kind of wild fluctuation can actually help improve earnings, as it gives Vanguards investment professional the chance to scoop up stocks at bargain prices before the market as a whole realizes there was really no reason to panic. Taking the long-term view is the key.

“Because no one knows what the future holds, a globally diversified strategy can be more advantageous than shifting too much in any direction,” said Vanguard CEO, Bill McNabb. “You can resist the temptation and save yourself the stress by tuning out the noise. It’s OK to ignore volatility—that’s part of the plan.”