WORCESTER, Mass. — The Japanese market dropping as significantly as it did, the worst decline since the Black Monday of 1987, has created some concern. The president of Carr Financial Group in Worcester said we are absolutely not in a recession at this point, but adds the stock market doesn't necessarily reflect what's happening today — it's about what's going to happen in the future.

Heading into Monday, international markets had a significant decline overnight, largely based on the weaker than expected jobs report on Friday.

Richard Carr said the current unemployment rate suggests there may be a recession in the future for the U.S., which has an impact on profitability for companies and their stock price.

For the U.S., Carr said earnings numbers have been relatively strong and expectations have been met, especially in the IT space.

He said we’ve had about 18 months of a fantastic run in the stock market, so this is the natural cycle of things when it comes to the market and folks who have a balanced portfolio are best served by rebalancing and not making any wholesale changes.

“It sounds very boring, but the basic fundamental aspects of investing hold true today. That is asset allocation," Carr said. "You have eggs spread among different baskets and rebalancing. As boring as it may sound, if the right mix of assets was a certain percentage in stocks and a certain percentage in other types of investments like bonds and real estate, that's going to shift in this market. Stocks may become less of a component of your portfolio. As unnerving as it may be, adding back to that asset mix that has declined in value is the right choice, has always been the right choice historically. We encourage folks to put emotion aside and focus on those fundamentals.”

Carr said the Federal Reserve is likely going to do whatever is necessary to make sure there's enough liquidity in the market so businesses and consumers can still get loans. The path there would be to lower interest rates to make credit more affordable and more available.

Carr expects to see the Fed make a move in the coming weeks before their next scheduled meeting with a potential for a rate cut.