The government is on the right track ... now investors need to keep cool. That's what some of the top experts in the financial world suggested Thursday in a financial summit on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
Jack Bogle, Vanguard Group Founder
"This is my tenth bear market and what's different about this one is that the problems of the financial markets are spreading over to the real economy," Bogle said.
"If you're a speculator, I have absolutely no advice to give you," Bogle said. "Get out of the market now."
But investors allocating their assets intelligently -- with diversified stocks and a reasonable position in bonds -- should "fight it out" and not change their strategy, he said.
"Times of market volatility and great peril, or apparent peril, are terrible times to make long-term strategic decisions," Bogle added
High volatility may be linked with the number of speculators.
"We are still engaged in the US market in an orgy of speculation the likes of which we have never seen," he said. "I think that's one of the big problems in this market, but in the long run speculation counts for nothing."
Paul McCulley, Pimco Managing Director
"I do think that we have, in place, the right set, finally, of government policies to counter this paradox of deleveraging," McCulley said.
"The reasons for optimism, if you want to be optimistic, and I do, is that you've seen the right kind of (government) response," he said. "They are going to stand up to the challenge in a very forceful way."
Abbey Joseph Cohen, President of Global Markets Institute at Goldman Sachs
The U.S. economy should start to see growth in mid-2009 and it will start to show signs of improvement in early spring next year, Cohen said.
If the global policy actions "are effective, we'll start to see the system unfreezing," she said.
"This economy was not doing all that well prior to the credit crisis," Cohen said. "The labor markets, for example, have been deteriorating for more than a year."
Bob Doll, BlackRock Chief Investment Officer
The government actions have gone a long way to helping the financial situation and the governments need to follow through so the markets can move on to the "normal" issues of recession, Doll said.
People that say "I can't stand the volatility, can't stand losing the money, I'm pulling the plug" are probably not being prudent at this time, he said.
"I'd say things are improving," Doll added. "Forced selling will continue but probably at a lesser pace…volatility will remain but probably in two years from now we'll look back and say why didn't I buy more stocks in October 2008?"