HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — The ticker-tape that wraps around the UConn Business School brought bad news and then more bad news as people stopped to watch as the Dow closed down nearly 400 points.

“When you look at the board and you see the stock market dropping, I get nervous my money is all tied up and I can’t touch it,” said Terry Polnik of Ashford.

At the end of the day, the market never rebounded and let air out of an already deflated balloon. John Latour of Woodstock looks at what is going around Connecticut and the country and doesn’t like what he sees.

“It’s crazy, it makes everybody nervous. 269 Wal-Marts closing announced today, as well, I’m sure that exacerbates things.”

Analysts say January 2016 has set a record as the worst opening month to the stock market. It has many people calling their financial advisors asking what should I do? Albi Sako of Hartford has been talking to his broker.

“Financial advisor says I’m pretty young, so in the long term, the markets going to go up-and-down up-and-down.”

We talked to a couple of financial advisors and they had tips saying that if you’re young enough and your retirement is still 5-10 years away, you can and should ride it out. Because the market is going to go up-and-down and there will be corrections. However, if you’re closing in on retirement age, they say you should’ve already been into safer investments. Michael Dagostino of Hamden still has a ways to go before retirement and he says the stock market is a long term investment.

“We haven’t had a major correction in quite a while. After the last correction we had seven years of a bull market. To me, you can’t look at it on a daily basis or even a monthly basis.”

People talking about a down economy like Wal-Mart stores closing, GE moving to Boston, the talk of gas tax and sales tax in Connecticut going up; they’re not optimistic the market will turn around soon. Latour is looking to November.

“What can you do? How much control do we have? But the elections are coming up.”