Heather Altamirano

Sun, Jun 15, 2025, 7:03 AM4 min read

Since President Trump took office for the second time, the market has been on a wild ride largely due to implementation of mass tariffs, causing many Americans nearing retirement and those who have already stopped working to panic for their 401(k)s.

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“I looked at my 401(k) this morning and in the last two days that’s lost $58,000. That’s stressful,” recent retiree Victor Fettes, 54, told NBC News. “If that continues, I can’t stay retired.”

With the market in continuous flux, Trump’s tariffs threaten to increase prices and inflation. And Americans are feeling financially strapped. Many are worried about their golden years and whether they should invest. While there’s no one size fits all answer, there are several things to consider, according to experts.

It’s scary to shell out money for investments when the market is uncertain. One benefit to investing during such economic instability is you can often buy stocks at a lower price and sell them at a higher cost later.

However, individual situations vary. Tracy Shuchart, Senior Economist at NinjaTrader, advised to take note of Russell Investments’ comprehensive analysis of 31 U.S. recessions from 1869 to 2018.

“Historical evidence strongly supports continued investment during periods of economic uncertainty, despite the counterintuitive nature of this approach,” she stated, referring to the data revealing 16 out of the 31 recessions produced positive stock market returns.

She explained, “Market timing presents significant challenges that argue against attempting to avoid volatile periods entirely and that Russell Investments’ research demonstrates beating a buy-and-hold strategy over 150 years would require correctly predicting 77% of market turning points — a level of accuracy that proves elusive even for professional investors.”

Looking to the past to see how the country endured previous economically challenging times can help forecast how future recessions will fare, and determine a financial path that will build long-term stability even during shaky times.

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A volatile market can create a lack of confidence when it comes to investing, but there are calculated systems that can work during turbulent times such as the dollar-cost averaging strategy. It involves investing a fixed amount in regular intervals, whatever the amount is.