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WOULD you go to war with your financial advisor? If the answer is no, then maybe you should consider finding yourself another advisor. I chose the war analogy because advice, like war, is serious business and any advisor not willing to take on this responsibility should seek other employment.

I recently heard rumours of some advisors recommending to their clients to switch into cash. This is like a lieutenant ordering his troops to run for the hills at the first sign of gunfire; when what he should be doing is using his experience and training to lead from the front.

The investment principals surrounding market cycles are well documented and have been proven time and time again.

You cannot time markets and therefore investment success is not about market timing, but time in the market.

Investors can be forgiven for taking irrational decisions as they are prone to their emotions and therefore the classic mistake of thinking this time is different. The argument goes something like: "You see, this downturn is different - the last time it was after 9/11 and the time before that, it was the emerging markets crisis. But this time it is record high oil prices, the sub-prime and a global food crisis".

Our minds have difficulty comprehending that a market correction is not normal because it is apparently caused by a different set of circumstances. This is why investors need a financial advisor and why it is so dangerous if you have a salesman masquerading as an advisor.

Dan Wheeler of DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors) reminds financial advisors not to get caught up in their own forecasts or those of the so-called experts.

"We all have opinions of course. The key is to behave with clients as an agnostic. When I was an advisor, I always told my clients that I had my own opinions about the direction of stock prices, but God forbid that I would invest their capital based on those opinions. They 'got' the message and it served them (and me) well."

The one thing we do know is that markets do recover; we just don't know when. Investec Asset Management director Jeremy Gardiner reminds investors of the age-old cliché: 'buy cheap, sell expensive'. Pay careful attention to this adage, as we are definitely closer to the bottom than the top, and selling equities now could be an expensive mistake.

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