I've been seeing a lot of people ask whether they should dump their stocks right now. The S&P 500 is barely moving this year — down less than 0.2% since January — and honestly, that's making a lot of folks nervous. About 37% of investors are now betting prices will drop in the next six months, which is more pessimistic than we've seen in a while.

But here's the thing that keeps coming back to me: Warren Buffett has been through this exact moment multiple times, and his take on it is pretty much the opposite of what most people do.

Back in 2008, when everything was falling apart and people genuinely thought the world was ending, Buffett wrote something in the New York Times that's stuck with me. He basically said: yes, some companies will struggle. But the idea that major, well-run businesses won't recover and hit new profit records in 5, 10, 20 years? That makes no sense.

He looked at the entire 20th century — two world wars, the Depression, multiple recessions, oil shocks, you name it — and pointed out that the Dow went from 66 to 11,497. Think about that. Through all that chaos, the market still crushed it. Since that October 2008 piece, the S&P 500 has gone up over 620%. Not bad for a period everyone thought was doomed.

The real issue Buffett identified isn't whether to sell stocks now or hold. It's that most people do the opposite of what they should. They buy when everything feels comfortable, then panic-sell when headlines get scary. That's the actual wealth killer, not market downturns.

Obviously, not all stocks are created equal. If you're holding companies with weak fundamentals and no real competitive edge, yeah, those can get destroyed in a downturn. But quality businesses with solid financials, good management, and real advantages? Those tend to come out the other side stronger.

The pattern I keep noticing is that the people who actually build wealth aren't the ones trying to time the market or figure out which stocks to sell now. They're the ones who load up on quality, ignore the noise, and let time do the work. Netflix went from a Stock Advisor pick in 2004 to turning a $1,000 investment into over $409,000. Nvidia in 2005 turned $1,000 into over $1.1 million. Those aren't flukes — they're what happens when you stay invested in the right companies through the chaos.

The takeaway? If you're thinking about selling, maybe ask yourself if you're actually responding to fundamentals or just reacting to headlines. There's a big difference, and one of them has historically made people a lot of money.