While news of plummeting stock market indices have struck fear in many, millennials are less likely to be directly affected because they invest less than any other generation before them, according to CNBC. Essentially, you can't worry about what effects the coronavirus is having on your portfolio if you don't actually have a portfolio. Fewer than a third of those born between 1981 and 1996 have a 401(k), fewer than 20 percent have any sort of retirement savings account, fewer than 20 percent have an investment account of any kind, and many don't even have cash savings, period. At the other end, they're less likely to put any money they have into investing because many are trying to pay off their student loans and would rather put sudden windfalls towards that. 

At the same time, while many millennials may not be directly exposed to the current market chaos, indirect exposure can be just as worrisome—for example, if the company they work for lays off employees in response, or even goes under. While we might not necessarily like it, market fluctuations can eventually filter out of the world of numbers on a spreadsheet and into the real world.