Flash-crash dejavu; should I care?

Something happened at the New York Stock Exchange last Monday. It was a market tantrum borne out of months of speculation about economic instability in the world, potential interest rate policy changes at the Federal Reserve, seemingly tepid economic growth in the USA and who knows what else.  I have been watching the value of my retirement portfolio decline over the last 9 months or so, from its peak in December of 2014. It has declined 10%, to be exact. Against that, I have collected dividends of approximately 2%, all of which have been reinvested, suggesting my share count has risen by 2% while the value of those shares has dropped by 10%.

The question is, should I care? No one likes to see their net worth shrink. On the other hand, every company I own continues to pay dividends, generally rising dividends. Cheaper shares mean I purchase a bit more every quarter when dividend-reinvesting time comes around.  My brokerage statements suggest my dividend receipts are rising, although I don't keep a separate spreadsheet. One of the hard things about watching that value drop is that I have also invested another 25k or so into the total portfolio at the same time. Is this one of those "times that tries men's souls"?  Not quite, I would venture, but it's certainly a time when I am questioning whether I should be DRIPing or collecting cash. Had I collected that 19k in cash dividends from the first of the year, I could deploy it now, at 10% lower cost than I did over the last 6 months. Had I saved that 25k in new contributions, I could also deploy that at lower cost than I did over the last 6 months.

If you only buy when there is "blood on the streets", then there is a lot of time when you aren't buying. That would mean very large cash positions building over time. One would have to have a strategy for cash. In my IRAs, I could be using cash to sell puts and produce more cash. However, the brokerage fees cut at least 10% out of short term put premiums.

The 19k dividends and 25k new contributions add up to 44k investment. Had I invested at 10% lower cost, I'd own $4400 more in stock, or about 0.4% of the portfolio, or probably not enough over which to commit ritual suicide. In this next 6 months, I'll acquire some stock at lower prices and perhaps invest new contributions at lower prices as well, depending on where things move from here.

As it was, I was on my way to work when the flash-crash was occurring and by the time my workday was done, it was over, halfway recovered, and I didn't have cash to deploy anyway. For me, it was an event that wasn't. I sat on my hands, so to speak. There wasn't anything to do, other than to either pay attention or not.

It was a busy week, so I didn't. By week's end, things have further recovered. We'll see what the next week brings. I'm DRIPing at lower prices and no new contributions are flowing into the portfolio at the moment. Another boring week at the retirement portfolio....