Surviving the Market Meltdown

Barron's Retirement

By Elizabeth O'Brien | Sunday, April 6

Trump's tariffs have tanked the stock market, and it's rough out there. Try to avoid checking your 401(k) balance, if you can help it. It's all paper losses anyway, until you sell. If you do that, you lock in your losses, and then you have to worry about when to get back in. Typically, by the time investors feel comfortable returning to the market, stocks will have already appreciated and investors will have missed most of the recovery.

That's not to minimize the discomfort of a declining balance, especially if you need the money any time soon. Financial advisors generally recommend that retirees keep a year's worth of expenses in cash, if possible, to prevent having to withdraw from their retirement accounts in a down market.

Investors have flocked to gold amid the uncertainty, pushing the precious metal to one record high after another. An advisor I talked to recently called it "chaos insurance." Gold hasn't been put to the test in that capacity–and hopefully, it won't be–but a small allocation can at least help you sleep at night.

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