Experts are urging investors to stay the course after a wave of panic selling Monday sent the S&P/TSX Composite Index down 10.3%, triggering volume alerts that briefly shut markets and wiping out $218 billion in value in the biggest one-day drop since 1987.

Markets plunged across North America — the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average experienced the worst drops since December 2008 — but the Canadian market was hit particularly hard by slumping oil prices with Meg Energy Corp. tumbling 56%, Cenovus Energy Inc. dropping 52% and Crescent Point Energy Corp. slipping 43%.

The loonie weakened by about 1.9% against the U.S. greenback as of late afternoon Monday, the most since June 2016. West Texas Intermediate, the North American oil price benchmark, was down 25%, the biggest descent since 1991, after tumbling as much as 34%.

Despite the market calamity, Sun Life chief investment officer Sadiq S. Adatia said most investors should hold fast, as he sees the TSX, Dow and S&P 500 indexes all bouncing back once the coronavirus concerns are alleviated.

“However, it will get worse before it gets better,” he told the Star. “We expect the earnings to be impacted this quarter and next, with a recovery after that.”

Institutional money managers and personal finance advisers echoed his advice, saying the best move for most Canadians is no move at all, aside from portfolio tweaks. In most cases they advise against portfolio sell-offs, which would lock in losses.

“It feels like we have an overreaction,” said Geof Marshall, vice president of portfolio management at Toronto’s CI Investments. He said that central banks and monetary policy-makers are equipped to respond quickly and massively when markets are threatened — and he also sees positive economic stimulus from low oil prices and government moves to assist consumers hit by losses in their retirement savings.

For investors with long-term diversified portfolios, Marshall said his advice is to “stay the course, definitely.”

Personal finance expert Rubina Ahmed-Haq agreed that most investors should sit tight, with the possible exception of those with a redemption horizon of less than five years, in which case there may be some opportunity to sell and cash in gains from a 10-year Bull Run.

“History tells us markets do come back and that should give some comfort,” said Ahmed-Haq. “Still, things are happening much more quickly today. And you’ve got a few things happening in tandem.”

Among those are the viral outbreak and a lack of confidence in the Trump administration’s ability to get a hold of the contagion, according to David Baskin, president of Toronto investment firm Baskin Wealth Management.

Add in Korean missile tests and Saudi Arabia’s move to ramp up oil output to target Russian production and the result is a perfect storm of events that sent investors to the exits. Baskin said the sell-off has also been fuelled by calls for investors to make good on margin loans taken out to purchase stocks.

Legendary U.S. investor Jim Rogers suggested that buying opportunities may arise if the markets continue to fall, adding that the most decimated issues, such as those of China’s three major airlines, represent the best opportunity once the market correction reaches bottom and economic recovery takes hold, possibly in the second half of the year.

Others recommended a focus on safe plays such as gold until there is a better understanding of the economic impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on global supply chains and on investing behaviour.

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The market sell-off was triggered in part by Saudi Arabia’s plans to boost oil output, which sent oil prices into a spiral and hammered Canadian energy stocks. The 30-company S&P/TSX energy index plunged as much as 22% Monday, its biggest intraday decline in Bloomberg data stretching back to 1988.

The oil crisis will likely have an impact on the larger Canadian economy as well, which was already on soft footing at the end of 2019, after a drop in exports and business investment resulted in the slowest quarterly pace of growth in three years.

“Given market developments in the last couple of days, the likelihood of a recession has increased dramatically,” Jean-Francois Perrault, chief economist at Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto, told Bloomberg by phone.

“The oil price crash will do irreparable damage to the Canadian economy and stock market,” said Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. in New York. “Canadians will have to brace for lower prices for the foreseeable future and the oil sector will have to consolidate. Even when virus fears ease, the oil-dependent Canadian economy snapback rally will lag their peers,” he said.

With files from Bloomberg