Keep calm and carry on investing is the message from financial advisers.

Financial advisers are warning KiwiSavers to keep calm, and carry on buying shares.

"You just have to have faith in the market," financial adviser Liz Koh said, as the New Zealand stockmarket opened lower after a torrid day for United States shares.

And, if that was hard, she said, remember what happened after the global financial crisis sent some investors into a panic.

Those who held their nerve reaped bumper returns.

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"If you had money invested just before the global financial crisis struck, you would have had twice as much money now," Koh said.

SUPPLIED Financial adviser Liz Koh urged KiwiSavers to learn from the rebound of sharemarkets after the Global Financial Crisis.

Volatility, as rises and falls in share prices are known, was part and parcel of KiwiSaver long-term growth investing, she said, so KiwiSavers should not panic when they see a fall, especially after a long period of stellar returns.

The Morningstar KiwiSaver report showed in 2017 the average KiwiSaver growth fund returned 15.7 per cent to investors before tax.

Koh also reminded KiwiSavers that they continued to drip feed money into the scheme week-in, week-out, which meant they bought shares in both rising, and falling markets.

CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF The New Zealand sharemarket has opened down following market corrections overseas, but KiwiSavers are being urged not to panic.

"This (lower share prices) is an opportunity to make money," she said.

Forsyth Barr adviser Jeff Matthews agreed.

"If you are sticking $500 a month into KiwiSaver, even if you have several months of negative returns, you can buy more units for a lower price."

SUPPLIED Jeff Matthews, adviser at Forsyth Barr, says corrections will happen from time to time after sustained periods of high returns.

Matthews said after last year's incredible returns for growth investors, there was a good chance of some market pullbacks in 2018, but talk of shifting from growth funds into lower risk conservative funds was "silly".

If house prices in Auckland fell 5 per cent, after a year in which they had risen 25 per cent, would people talk about selling, Matthews asked.

Matthews said global growth was good in major economies, and both unemployment and interest rates were low.

SUPPLIED Joe Bishop from KiwiWealth KiwiSaver scheme said the global economy is growing, and in good shape.

"The fundamentals are good for the first time in 15 years," he said.

"You have strong growth in the US, Europe and Japan. All the major economies are growing at the same time."

David Beattie, chief investment officer from the Booster KiwiSaver scheme, said the risk of a correction was always going to be high after 2017 in which for the first time ever, none of the NZX, ASX and US S&P sharemarkets had a single month of negative returns.

That made last year "extraordinary", he said. "Investors have been lulled into a sense that that was normal."

Over the past three decades there was a 5 per cent fall in sharemarkets once a year, and a 10 per cent fall once every two years, he said.

Another cautioning KiwiSavers to stay calm was Camelot financial adviser Bruce Cameron.

"The best analogy I would give is Brexit. The markets dropped 15 per cent on that unexpected news, but a week later they were back to where they had been before it happened."

Nobody could predict with any certainty what would happen next, so KiwiSavers were best staying focused on things they could control, like their long-term investment strategy, he said.

Cameron advised people in a fright to call their adviser, if they needed someone to talk to, or their KiwiSaver provider.

Overreacting to market corrections is common.

Psychologists have shown that losing a sum of money is more emotionally powerful than gaining the exact same sum.

"The losses are more painful than the gains. It's stupid, but it's human nature," Matthews said.

The effect also led media to write frightening stories when markets fell by 6 per cent, Cameron said.

Stories were much more muted when markets rose 6 per cent, he said.

But if there was a KiwiSaver rush to switch from growth funds to conservative funds, there would plenty of time for investors to think again and call it off.

It probably took between five and 10 days for KiwiSaver schemes to action a fund switch request, Cameron said.

Joe Bishop from the Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver scheme said there had been an increase in calls from worried KiwiSavers.

Any who needed personalised advice were being steered to one of its authorised financial advisers.

But Bishop said KiwiSavers should not be trying to "time the markets".

The best advice was to "make sure you are in the right fund for your stage of life", he said.

That meant getting advice, or using online tools, to decide whether to invest through a KiwiSaver conservative, balanced or growth fund.