what it all means for your money is diane swank, and personal finance expert carmen wong ulrich. let me start with you diane. crazy day in the market. are we heading for another day of the dow falling. then the rally in the end ends up 400 points up. what do you make of it all? >> really the financial markets were having a hard time figuring out what the fed said in their statement. there was a lot of information to digest. but to distill it down, the financial markets found out that ben bernanke with a bit of resistance from his colleagues was going to stand by the statement the g-7 had on sunday which was do anything it could to shore up this economy and provide liquidity in the face of what's happened. the economy is much weaker than they once thought it was. the debt ceiling crisis certainly dealt a blow to the u.s. economy then a downgrade by s&p. all of that with revisions to gdp showing the american economy stalled out. the u.s. said we're not going to let that happen. then financial markets after reading through everything believed the fed. >> i was watching this all thin

joining us is leigh gallagher, ali velshi and kai ryssdal, and carmen wong ulrich. we've seen record fall, record rises and record falls again. yet again i ask you, what the hell is going on? >> every day i get up very early. every day i think maybe piers can just run my answer from the night before. unfortunately every day it's a different reason. last week it was italy. on monday it was the s&p downgrade. then tuesday the market was up so i did actually go to sleep early and then today it's france of all things. these are catalysts. we're such a jittery market that any little thing sets it off. today it was rumor that france might get its credit rating downgraded. france is a big economy. bigger than italy. that got nervous investors saying i don't want to get caught holding the bag when something really bad happens but irony in getting out of the market to preserve your money, the bad thing is happening. there's a lot of nervousness. selling out of stocks and moving into things that are safe. gold, another record touching $1,800 an ounce and u.s. treasuries yield

joining me is personal finance expert carmen wong ulrich.veryone trying to figure out how this will trickle down to me at home. when we talk about our 401(k)s, home loans, car loans, student loans, when will we feel it? >> that will determine a lot of it. right now what we're feeling with the markets last week, with the markets today and probably going forward for a little bit is a lot of volatility and a lot of loss. what we're hearing from folks is, do i just run? do i get out? first of all, anything you do in a panic is not going to be a good move, so don't function on that. ask yourself a couple questions. first of all, how anxious are you? how far are you from retirement? if you're within five, ten years of retirement and you have more than 60% of your money in the market, you want to take a look at that, and do you know where your assets actually are? if i ask people in the 401(k), where are you invested? you probably don't know. call up your 401(k) administrator and ask them to meet with a financial adviser. most plans have that. let'

joining me now to help calm down all of us just a little bit, personal financial expert carmen wong ulriche you this morning. >> good morning, thomas. >> as we watch this together as a nation, it's clearly a stressful time for anybody that thinks about what's going to be coming down the line for them in years to come. but let's talk about the rules for surviving this, especially for the people out there that are worried about how their future is unfolding before their eyes. >> yeah. the look of terror on those faces, that's a short-term terror because these guys are interested in the short term. first rule is you have to realize that if you're in the market this is a long-term commitment and a long-term investment. you should not fall prey to short-term thinking, which tends to be at this point fear. because here's the thing. you may pull all your money out now. when are you going to get back in? we know this historically. since the great depression, the first three to five years after a big market downturn, rapid accelerated growth. great gains in the market. if you can try to pull yourse

. >> personal finance expert carmen wong ulrich is here. >> good morning. >> no shortest of topics.lking about all-time lows here. refinancing. people are looking to maybe unload the bad mortgage that they are currently saddling. >> some folks are still on the fence and some can't. to get a loan in the first place you have to have a loan. if you've sitting on the sidelines this is a great time to lock it in because it's probably not going to get any lower and things are so tumultuous it could get higher. look at an example. 250,000 mortgage on your home and say you at 5.5% because you locked this in a couple of years ago. 30-year fixed rate your monthly payments is $1,414. if you it i don't care that down by 4.5% which is the average now if you don't pay any points up front. 30-year fixed rate monthly payment to $1,266 and saving you about 60 grand in interest and savings for the year, though, look at these savings. $1,800 a year in payments and almost $60 grand in total interest. if you have a bigger mortgage the bigger your savings are going to be. it makes a tremendous difference

. >> joining us with advice for worried consumers and investors is personal finance expert carmen wong ulrich real cost of living." good morning, corarmen. good morning. a trillion dollars in wealth wiped out just yesterday. what are investors to do with their retirement savings, their 401(k)s, their i.r.a.s. >> first of all, what you don't want to do is unfortunately which is what a lot of folks are doing is panicking. any move you make in a panic or out of fear is not going to serve you well down the road. you want to assess how far away from retirement are you? don't pull all your money out and put it into one asset class like a metal for example. and look at where your money actually is. do you know where you're actually invested? so most 401(k) providers give you access to free financial advisers. call up your administrator, ask to meet with that adviser. also there's a free portfolio x-ray to give you an idea of where your money actually is. if you need to make some small adjustments. but you want to make sure to make no giant moves right now. >> don't just get excited -- >> but -- >> p