If you are a stock investor, consider strategies such as placing stop-loss orders to reduce losses in a volatile market, subscribing to services that email you company specific news as it happens, and setting up loss review trigger points to review your investment.

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Jehangir offsets the risk in holding these volatile stocks with holdings in big financial services companies, especially banks.

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Kevin Daly of Goldman Sachs thinks there are modest grounds for optimism: the sectors that shrank most this time, such as oil and gas, are notoriously volatile, whereas those that grew, such as services, may be seeing sustainable improvement.

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