It’s become the spectator sport of investors – watching the volatility of Wall Street, much like a hotly contested athletic event.

But with so much riding on the market – from retirement accounts to college education funds or simply financial peace of mind – investors these days are losing more than the price of admission.

Maine investors, like those nationwide, are asking anyone from educators to investment advisers for help as Wall Street continues its downward slide in the wake of scandalous accounting practices and jitters over which companies to trust.

Many Mainers are selling their stocks, and many more are wondering whether they should do so because the investments have lost so much value in the last year or so.

“There’s no obvious answers to things right now,” said Robert Strong, a University of Maine professor of finance, on Monday. “It’s spooky stuff.”

Strong is one person who has fielded a number of questions these days, and the first piece of advice he is giving is: Turn off the television. Not all companies have overstated their financial positions, and many companies are poised for growth, he said, because “earnings by and large are not too bad.”

Studies show that people who look at their portfolios once a month tend to be happier than those who watch the tickers hour by hour, Strong said.

“People are looking at their investment portfolios more often than they should,” Strong said. “Right now we have folks looking at things hourly. People get all twisted around and confused because they don’t know what it all means.”

That ever-constant viewing of the stock markets has brought about a form of consumer mentality that Strong said he is having trouble comprehending. Seeing red ticker symbols and prices scrolling across the bottom of a television screen when an all-day financial news channel is turned on can incite panic, he said.

“It’s become a matter of getting confidence back in people,” he said.

At Bangor Savings Bank, investment advisers have been inundated with calls from clients wanting to know whether to bail out, said Chris Nelson, chief investment officer for the bank and its subsidiary, Bangor Savings. He said he tells them, “No.”

“There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on right now,” Nelson said Monday. “Do I think we’re at the bottom? I don’t know. Do I think we’re near the bottom? Maybe. But now is actually the time to stay put.”

Nelson said he compares the recent market slide to the fall of 1998, when Russia defaulted on its loans from the United States. At that time, all stocks – “not just the lousy ones” – fell, he said. Eventually, the companies with the clean balance sheets and the strong business plans brought the markets out of a slide, he said.

“All the [scandal-plagued] companies that are doing poorly, those are being thrashed and rightfully so,” Nelson said. “Now [the market’s] in the cycle where nobody’s safe. There are lots of companies, big and small, that are being treated unfairly. We’re not going to step in here and sell when we think it’s the worst time to be doing so.”

Now is the time, Nelson said, to be shopping “for a real good company … at a bargain.”

That includes Maine companies, he said. Usually after dramatic market slides, medium-sized companies with balance sheets that “range from several hundred million dollars to 1 [billion] to 3 billion dollars” are the ones that will pick up the economy and the markets, he said.

“There’s potentially a lot of companies here in Maine that could be falling into that category,” said Nelson, without naming any.

During the substantial drops of the last week, Maine publicly traded companies have fared well, said Brad McCurtain, president of Maine Securities Commission in Portland.

“Local stocks have outperformed every one of the major averages,” McCurtain said. “The credibility issue doesn’t seem to be an issue right now. People really understand those companies, so they’re not thrashing them.”