In the News

What to do When the Markets Plummet and You’re Nearing Retirement

By Samantha Fields February 27, 2020 Marketplace

This is a deeply unsettling time, in the United States and around the world.

Public life and economic life are shutting down — for how long, no one knows — as governments scramble to try to slow the spread of COVID-19.

And the markets are reacting, despite federal efforts to calm investors. This week, they recorded their worst single-day drop since 1987.

So what does all this mean if you have money invested in the stock market, particularly if you’re retired or nearing retirement? Does that age-old advice — not to panic, and just ride it out — still hold?

Short answer: yes.

Slightly longer answer: yes, mostly. But there are a few things you can be thinking about, and that you might want to do.

For retirees — and really everyone right now — “the big thing is just make sure they have their immediate cash needs ready to go,” said Shashin Shah, a managing director at SFMG Wealth Advisors in Plano, Texas. “There’s not any amount of risk that would make sense if there’s money that’s needed this year or the year after. And it’s important to map that out quite a bit.”