Yesterday, CNBC interviewed the President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde on Europe’s fiscal problems. You can see the interview here. It is well worth 8 minutes of your time.

In our view, resolution of the debt problems in Europe will take time, and will be expensive. To protect our clients, we have avoided European bonds, and minimized exposure to European equities for some time now. That being said, uncertainty regarding Europe’s fiscal imbalances and the likely cost of restructuring that the European banks will have to bear will continue to drive stock market volatility globally.

We believe that the fear triggered by bad economic news and increased market volatility will result in short-term indiscriminate selling of a wide range of quality company shares. The rational and prudent investor will benefit over the longer term by accumulating shares in great companies during this time of volatility.

Will you be rational and prudent?

Rona Birenbaum is a certified Financial Planner and is licensed to do financial planning. Rona is registered through separate organizations for each purpose and as such, you may be dealing with more than one entity depending on the products purchased. Rona is registered through Caring-for-Clients for financial planning services. This website is not meant as a solicitation for financial advisory servicesFinancial advisory services are available through the facilities of Queensbury Strategies Inc. Financial Planning is not the business of or under the supervision of Queensbury Strategies Inc. and Queensbury will not be liable or responsible for such activities.