Learning to ‘plan for the worst’ and ‘hope for the best’

Ten years hasn’t diminished the vivid memories of 9/11 for Paul Schatz, president of Heritage Capital LLC, a $110 million advisory firm based in Woodbridge, Conn.

“I remember what I was wearing. I remember where I was standing in my office. I remember everything about that day,” Mr. Schatz said.

Like a lot of people, his initial assumption after the first plane hit the World Trade Center was that it was an accident involving a small plane.

“Then I watched my computer screen as the pre-market futures started to collapse,” Mr. Schatz said. “And then the second plane hit.”

As an active trader, Mr. Schatz’s initial reaction was to “scramble to try and figure out how it was going to affect my positions.”

But that knee-jerk reaction faded throughout the day, during which he said he just sat in a chair in his office while friends and colleagues from nearby offices filtered in and out.

“People were more worried about their personal safety than they were worried about their money,” Mr. Schatz said. “People just wanted to make sure they were going to be alive, and I will never forget watching the World Trade Center collapse and knowing that I had friends in there.”

A day earlier, Mr. Schatz was on a plane returning from a golf trip to Florida, and two weeks later, when planes started flying again, he was back on another plane.

“I believe after a plane crash is the safest time to fly, just like after a market crash is the safest time to invest,” he said. “Given what we do in our industry, we have to learn to plan for the worst but hope for the best, and given where we are in the world, you have to expect some kind of terrorist attack to happen again.”