KEY POINTS:
Stockbroker Ian Waddell has been through some turbulent times in his professional career.
A 25-year veteran of equity trading, Waddell has lived through 1987's sharemarket carnage, the 1997 Asian crisis and 2000's popping of the United States dotcom bubble.
But this year's ongoing market meltdown, he feels, is going to be felt much more widely than the 1987 crash.
"It's been much broader - New Zealand was the worst market affected in '87, but the rest of the world bounced back pretty quickly whereas [now] in fact it's the rest of the world that's really continued to have problems."
While investors in the sharemarket in 1987 were very badly affected, the contagion to other sectors such as property was more limited because of stricter rules around borrowing.
Today, the level of borrowing is much higher, and more people stand to be hit hard, he said.
Waddell, who is McDouall Stuart's head of sharebroking, said he had been fielding an increased number of calls from clients anxious over the present state of the markets. Many of his clients were aged over 55, and either self-employed or retired.
"Because you're dealing with people's wealth, it's a very difficult situation. These negative markets have certainly been very tiring."
But many understand that he feels just as stressed.
"The thing is that I've always been an investor myself so they know that I've got my skin on the line, so I've been affected just as much."
Even sharebrokers who don't have skin in the game are feeling the pinch. The relatively light volume of trades means commissions are down, as brokers are paid a percentage of the total value of a transaction.
ASB Securities' Stephen Wright said turnover was not increasing but the number of phone calls brokers were taking was.
People wanted to know what their broker was thinking, he said.
"We are doing more talking but not a great deal more transactions.
"Our clients are under stress and by implication we are under some amount of stress but it's more a frustration that one can't add anything to it. You tell people not to sell and then three days later markets have gone down further and they are becoming more stressed.
"There's a number of people who make you feel like you are responsible for their portfolios going down. But there's not much I or anyone else in this office can do about their portfolios."
Yesterday was an "up" day, so Wright was a little more relaxed than he had been in recent weeks. It goes without saying that when sharemarkets are crashing, brokers, said Wright, are "on edge all the time".
But they're not jumping out of windows, or drinking themselves to a stupor just yet, he said.
"They have to keep a level head."
When he goes home at night Wright finds himself watching CNBC, often while his wife sleeps. And when he wakes in the morning he jumps back onto CNBC or the market watch page on the internet.
A brisk walk outside sometimes helps keep him focused. And in the last month he has started catching the ferry between home in Half Moon Bay, and work in the Auckland CBD, which is proving more relaxing than a peak-hour drive.
But he expects more of the same volatility over the coming months - "nothing's going to turn positive tomorrow", he said.
"People thought bailouts and recapitalisation of banks would be the beginning of the end, but now developed countries are saying they are in a recession.
"Every day people are pulled between conflicting pieces of data so we just have to keep doing what we are doing and keep ourselves in the right head space to deal with whatever comes," he said.
For Grant Williamson, director of Christchurch-based brokerage Hamilton Hindin Greene, experience helps in keeping a cool head, but even he admits he's not seen this level of volatility in the markets.
"We've had some big up days, but we've have more big down days, and the thing is it's the period of time that this has been happening. It started quite a few months ago and it's just been continuing.
"I can understand how some people invested in the market are just getting a wee bit fed up with all this volatility. What investors hate is uncertainty and that's what they're seeing."
Williamson started investing in the sharemarket at 14, putting earnings from after-school jobs directly into shares.
He joined a sharebroker in 1987 - two months before the sharemarket tanked.
"It certainly opened my eyes and gave me very good experience going through a very rough period of time, because we not only had the crash but we had three years of companies collapsing and very quiet trading on the market."
Most of his firm's client base have been in the market for a long time, and are quite experienced investors.
"But you also have a number of younger investors, or less experienced investors, that do need reassurance to go through a period like this.
"As a sharebroker you do feel for the investors that have lost money. A lot of value and a lot of wealth has been deleted throughout this year really."
Like Waddell and Wright, Williamson agrees that it is a tough time for a sharebroker. But perspective is important.
"Every evening, you've still got your family to go home to, so you've got to put everything into context."
