Today I want to discuss three major ways that you can respond to the market chaos that’s been created by the Trump tariffs. What are the Trump tariffs? Hey, wake up and read the newspaper. Look at what’s going on. Our market has been rocked. I’ve had people in my office who are on the phone who’ve been talking to me, and they’re thinking about coming over to work with us, and some of ’em are down 20%, 16%, 12%. We’ve been down with our clients because nobody is immune to a big market sell off like we’ve had in the first quarter of the year of 2025. So we are facing a downturn that has by and large been generated by the imposition of tariffs by President Trump in an effort to try to balance the trade nationwide so that we’re not paying for our goods to be sold somewhere else, but yet somebody’s selling them to us freely.

Whether you like it or not, politically, here’s what we have to deal with. We have to deal with the fact that the market is down. So how do we deal with the market being down? When you’re facing two years, three years, four years from retirement, and you’ve taken this big hit, how are you going to respond to get your portfolio back to where you need it?

Number one, the one thing you can always do is nothing. The status quo. You can just stay right where you are. And historically, if you wait for the market to rebound historically, it always has. Here’s what I mean. I have been a financial advisor shortly after the 1994 downturn is when I started. Well, we were at the very bottom when I started, and what did it do from the 24% downturn in 1994? It responded. What did it do to the 47% downturn from 2000 to 2003? It responded in about two years. What did it do to the financial meltdown in 2008? It responded. What did it do when covid in 32 days? It went down 32%. What did it do? It responded back really quickly to covid in 2000 and what did it do? Just three short years ago in 2022 when the markets, the bond market and the stock market were both down 22% that year. If you had just ridden it out and stayed where you are, then you’d be ahead right now if you just stayed where you are. So here’s the key thing on that. If you’ve got time, if you’re five years away from retirement, four years away, seven years away, 10 years away, I would just do some of the things we’re going to talk about later in this program. Do some of the things we’re encouraging you to do there, but you don’t have to have a knee jerk reaction or even a reaction at all. Just hold the course on what you’ve got, stabilize everything. Hold the boat, keep it from rocking. Wait until it stops rocking and then make an assessment.

The status quo could be an option for you, but the status quo might not work well for you. If you’re already into retirement or you’re really close because you’ve already started decumulating, you’ve already started that payout portion where you’re paying yourself income from what you’ve saved, and if your market is down 20%, then every share that you take out of that to make up what you need every single month, every share that you take out of that is going to hit you for a bigger chunk of your equity that you have built up in your portfolio. If you don’t have time, if you’re close, then you really might need to pay attention to some of the other options that we’re going to present here.

So number one, just stick with the plan that you’ve got right now, status quo. It’ll generally come back. It always has. Number two. Number two, you may want to consider right now reworking your plan and building a plan of security. In other words, you’ve had it all in the market. You’ve had a hope strategy. You’ve been enjoying what the market’s done for you in the past 15, 16, 17 years since 2008, but by and large, it’s been very, very good to you, okay? And so you’ve been riding that wave. Warren Buffet was famous for a saying two years ago. He said, when the tide goes back out and the market goes down, we’re going to find out who’s swimming naked. And some of you’ve realized maybe you’re swimming naked, you don’t really have a plan. You’ve been thinking you were a genius, but you’ve just been riding the wave of the stock market going from in the Dow Jones 6,000 to 44,000.

Hey, anybody can make money in that kind of market by just being in that market. So now would be a time maybe for some of you to consider even with the downturn of putting some security in place with your plan, how do you do that? Number one, if you are decumulating, you’re in this time where you’re spending money, you’re trying to preserve what you’ve got and you’re having to draw from it every month to live off of. Maybe you put together a plan in place where you address your paycheck aspect. Now, what’s your paycheck aspect? Your paycheck aspect is at least three or four years of good solid investments. That’s not going to be in the market going up and down, but it’s going to be in something that you can say, there’s my money for the next three years or four years. Why three or four years?

Why do we call that the paycheck? Because if you’ve got three to four years of the income, you’re going to have to draw off of your portfolio, set aside, maybe in a money market, maybe in something very, very solid. Then you’ve got time with the rest of your money. We call that side your paycheck money. You’ve got time to ride that out right now. Maybe you don’t do the extra expenses. Maybe you postpone. I hate to say this particularly ladies, maybe you postpone redoing the kitchen, taking out that money right now. You have to take out bigger chunks of your equity to pay for the kitchen, to pay for the bathroom and the optional things, but you’ve got to take out your paycheck. So having and building a real retirement plan, not just a hope strategy, but a real retirement plan where you’ve got maybe two to three years minimum, you can also take out enough money to secure your income for the rest of your life, a payout for the rest of your life so that you can guarantee a paycheck that’s going to come to you as long as you live.

If you’re married, as long as you and your spouse are alive, so you can know we can carve out that much money of what we’re down to. We can put that in our paycheck bucket and guarantee that for life. But I encourage you to at least guarantee that paycheck for at least three years. Then you can invest the rest of your money, the paycheck, money in the market and maybe breathe a little bit easier. Nobody likes to see 20% downturns, but you breathe a little bit easier because I’ve got my paycheck for the next three years, and by that time, the likelihood is not the promise, but the likelihood is that the market will have rebounded from all of this and will be even higher than we were to begin with. So what’s that question? I hear it. So do we do that now? Well, you might want to be thinking, do I do it now because my accounts are down?

Well, if you do it now at least, let me ask you this. Are we down as low as we’re going to go or is there still further to go down? I don’t know that you don’t know that we don’t know. You might look back at this two months from now and say, boy, I wish I’d have done that then right now, I wish I’d have done it where the market is now, even though I’m down because it might go even lower. What if it rebounds Tom when I miss out on all that rebound? That’s a great question, but here’s your assumption. Your assumption is if you do start having a real plan that you’re not going to grow anything in those real plans, you’re going to grow in that blueprint that’s put together for growth. You’re going to grow in those as well. So growing back, if you move your money from a hope strategy into a real plan, paycheck, paycheck, as the market comes back, those are going to grow as well.

It’s a great time to start something, plant something that’s going to grow because chances are your growth’s going to be really strong. As we do have a rebound. Whether you stay where you are right now or whether you put it into a real plan, you’re going to grow either way. Don’t assume you’re not going to grow if you put it into a plan. Now, still on this number two, this might be a great time to really build a plan. It is going to be a great time whether you build a plan or not, to really go through a thorough risk assessment three different ways. Number one, you need to reassess your risk tolerance. You might’ve been comfortable taking a lot of risk in the market up until maybe two months ago, and now that you tried that risk on and you realized what it’s cost you in the past couple of months, maybe you’re saying, maybe I need to reassess this, particularly if you’re closer to retirement than you were the last time we went through a downturn.

Every time you get closer to retirement and you have a downturn, it really scares you more and more and more. You need to do your own personal risk assessment to see what’s your number one, your risk tolerance is I might not be able to tolerate what I used to tolerate. I used to be able to ride roller coasters. Okay? I get dizzy now sometimes on an airplane when it’s real bumpy because I’m just not as tolerant to bumpiness as I used to be. Some of you have found out in the past two months maybe you’re not as able to handle risk the way you used to handle. Why? Because you’re closer to retirement. Number two, you need to do a risk analysis of your portfolio. You’re looking at your portfolio and you’re saying, wow, that went down more than I thought it would go down.

Well, you look at the s and p, you look at the Dow Jones, you see they’re down 14, 15%. You’re down 20%. You better do a risk analysis of your portfolio. If you’re down more than what the markets are down. That means you’ve got a pretty high risky portfolio, so you need to make sure that you check that out. Make sure you match up your portfolio risk with your risk tolerance. What you’re able to handle. One more risk is risk capacity. You may absolutely just flat out not be able to afford to lose much more, or you won’t have enough money and you will have to go back to work, and you will have to start moving in with the kids or doing things like that. That’s just flat out risk capacity. How much can I afford to lose? Not am I, oh, I’m willing to risk this, but how much can I afford to lose before I get that balance down to zero?

A great time to work with a financial planner right now in building a plan. As we come out of this eventually, out of these downturns and the market chaos from these Trump tariffs that have been imposed as we come out of this, it’s a great time to do a thorough risk assessment of all three areas, your risk, your risk assessment, your portfolio’s risk assessment, and your risk capacity. Now, we’ve talked about just status quo. We’ve talked about building a real plan even though you’re down. Number three, a third option is to use what I would call some of the recovery products that are out there. Now, here’s what I mean by that. There are some investments out there that you can put your money in. Maybe you’ve just been scared to death by this downturn, and I mean the possibility of retiring has jumped at you.

“I don’t know if we can. I don’t know if we can as soon as we intend to. I don’t know if we can do the bath. I don’t know if we can do the kitchen. I don’t know if we can. I don’t know, because you’ve been shaken by this downturn. How do I make this up, Tom? How do I know? How long will it take me to make this up?” I know that because I’m getting these questions over the phone in our seminars and in our conference rooms. Okay, so what about is there a recovery product out there? This is not for everybody, but some of you’ve really been shaken by this. You say, “Tom, that risk alignment you talked about, that’s one thing, but I just want something that’s going to get me back to where I was guaranteed it, and I’m settled. I’m done with the rollercoaster. I’m done with the ups and downs.” There’s some products that are like that right now. There’s some products that are available to you out there right now. They are insurance investment products. Some of them are accumulation annuities. But listen, some of them have no fees, no fees whatsoever that come out of your money, and they’re giving a 10, 12, 14% bonus. Some of them have smaller fees, and they’re giving as much as a 20 or a 21% bonus right? Now, here’s what that means. You say, I’m down 15%. One of these products gives a 20% bonus. So immediately you say, I just want to take the uncertainty out of my portfolio right now. I’m done with this risk. I’m done with the feeling I’m done with the lack of sleep I’ve had in the past six weeks or a month as we’ve gone through this market chaos that was caused by the tariffs and the coming tariffs.

Okay? Listen to me. You need to at least be introduced to these products and at least know that they’re out there. I’ve got to do my responsibility to you in your best interest to tell you that there are some products you can put your money in even though it’s down right now, and get a percent bonus upfront, a 14% bonus, a 12% bonus, a 10% bonus, and it would guarantee you that you would stabilize your portfolio and make back that 10, 12, 14 or 20%. So if that’s appealing to you, if you just at least like to look at it and talk about it, you need to pick up the phone and call us because we can tell you about those right now. So what are you going to do? I told you at the very beginning, status quo, you can stay right where you are. If you have time, you’re probably going to be as well off as you are now in, I don’t know, two years, three years, four years, five years.

Just hang tight if you have time. By the way, if you’re in your twenties or thirties and you’re saving for retirement, don’t worry about it. Buy everything you can right now because everything’s on sale. Status quo works, number two. Number two, you can really build a plan, even though you’re down to grow out of this, but to grow stronger because it’s not a matter of if we have another downturn in the future, you will have another downturn in the future. And if you go into it again with just a hope strategy and just a high risk strategy and all your money’s in the market, you’re going to go down again and you’re going to panic again, and you’re going to fear again, and you’re going to lose sleep again.

But if you build a plan right now that addresses paycheck and paycheck, even though you’re down, as we grow back out of this, you’ll grow back much stronger, and I don’t think you’ll have the same amount of fear the next downturn we go through. Or number three, you can say, I’m done with all this fear. I want to investigate one of those recovery products that you’re talking about, and those recovery products can put you back up 10, 12, 14, 20%, and you can take the fear out of it for your future. Hey, I hope this was helpful. If you want to see more about how we help our clients, go to our website, www.mosleywealthmanagement.com. That’s M-O-S-L-E-Y wealth management.com, and be sure to share, subscribe to our channel so you’ll get reminders every week when we come out with new programs. As I always  say, give me 8 to 10 minutes, and I’ll do my best to increase your financial knowledge and help you ease into retirement.