Stock Market Volatility: What to Do With Your Retirement Investments Right Now

If you're an investor who's been hating the month of April, you're no doubt in good company. The stock market has experienced its share of wild swings over the past few weeks, and it's hard to know when things will settle down.

Chances are, if you were to compare your portfolio now to what it looked like at the start of the year, you'd see a decline. That may have you rethinking your retirement investments.

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But is now the time to make changes? It depends on your portfolio composition -- and also on where you are in your savings journey.

If you're already retired

If you're already retired, it means you may be tapping your portfolio for income on a regular basis. That's reason enough to take steps to limit your risk as appropriate.

If you still have 75% of your assets in stocks, that may be too heavy an allocation, given that you're relying on your investments for income you need right away. But if you only have 50% of your portfolio in stocks, you may not be overly exposed to the market.

That said, within the stock portion of your portfolio, it's important to make sure you're well-diversified. Tariff policies could affect certain industries (ahem, tech) more so than others. Make sure you're invested across a range of industries.

You may also want to load up on some essential consumer goods stocks in case a recession hits. Those might do a better job of retaining their value during an economic downturn.

Another thing it could pay to do is to make sure you have a decent chunk of your portfolio in income-generating assets like dividend stocks. If those investments are putting money into your portfolio, it could help offset other losses.

If you're years away from retirement

If retirement is several decades away, there may not be much you need to do with your portfolio right now. Even if the bulk of it is in stocks, you may not have to scale back, given that you may not be tapping those investments for income for another 20 years or so.

That said, it's always a good idea to look carefully at your asset mix and make sure it's as diversified as you think it is. Although a volatile market isn't necessarily the best time for a rebalance, there may be opportunities to buy and sell assets so you're invested across a wider range of industries. It's also a good time to see if any of the stocks on your watchlist are on sale.

Remember, too, that if you're years away from retirement, now's a good time to keep putting new money into stocks. Don't let volatility scare you away when the growth opportunity could be huge.

It's not easy to cope with an ongoing period of stock market turbulence. Unfortunately, it's hard to know when things will stabilize.

Be mindful of the way your portfolio is invested, but don't assume you need to make major changes in light of recent volatility. You may be fine sticking to your game plan. Depending on your situation, your best move might actually be to leave your portfolio as-is and not do a thing.

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