August is often the month that the bosses of Wall Street go out to the Hamptons for chardonnay and views of the ocean horizon. But August is also a month when unpleasant news stories have made headlines, leaving some with money in the markets more vigilant than usual.

To talk about it all with Marketplace’s David Brancaccio is Barry Ritholtz, chairman and chief investment officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: A lot of people don't like August. You know, you think of October, when some of the big stock market crashes happen, but we've had some bad stretches in August. I've been doing this long enough to remember them: the memory of Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait; the Russia economic crisis of 1998 (sovereign debt could never go bust — surprise!); the China market crisis 10 years ago. You get nervous in August in particular?

Barry Ritholtz: You know, I began my career on a trading desk, and I vividly recall the head trader in the dog days of summer. I was asking, "Gee, all these stocks seem to get pushed around so easily." And the answer was, "Rookies are manning the terminals." Look, the U.S. isn't Europe, but more and more people take a couple of weeks off in the summer, thinly traded markets, not a whole lot of things going on. So whatever happens, it tends to get a little exaggerated. Let me remind listeners the October crash that everybody is so afraid of — one was in 1987; that was 40 years ago; the other one was in 1929; that's almost a century ago. So, my bet is on the other 98 August, September, Octobers and not those two.

Brancaccio: The challenge is market timing. You know, knowing when to sell or when to buy. I mean, that generally doesn't work.

Ritholtz: That's right. Even if I could tell you, "Hey, August, September, we're going to see a 20% drop in the markets," what do you do with that information? '23 and '24 were both significant double-digit gains — plus 25% in the S&P. This year, we're up 8%-9%. Are you really going to sell, incur either long-term capital gains at 23% or short-term at 30% to try and sidestep a 20% drop? And then you run into the problem of, "When do I get back in?" We're much better off just looking the other way and letting it ride over the long haul.