Top headlines of the week, April 11 2025 | Video
Here are some stories you may have missed on Dispatch.com and in the Columbus Dispatch newspaper.
- Stock market volatility due to fluctuating tariff policies is causing concern for those nearing retirement.
- Financial advisors recommend against rash decisions and emphasize the importance of long-term planning.
- Individuals approaching retirement are advised to ensure they have sufficient funds to weather a potential recession.
If Annette Misenko was going to retire in 2025, she’s not so sure she could anymore.
Misenko, like many nearing the age of retirement, has kept a close eye on the stock market in recent weeks as it’s plummeted and rebounded from one day to the next —sometimes in a matter of minutes.
Luckily, Misenko has time on her side though. At 57, the Ohio State University employee may not retire for almost 10 years and she’s glad she doesn’t have to reconsider retirement this year like some may now be.
“I’d definitely be worried about it,” Misenko said of people thinking of retiring this year. “I would wait.”
Still, Misenko — who will one day rely on Social Secutiry and the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System — isn’t leaving anything to chance. To ensure she’s ready for retirement, Misenko attended a seminar on campus April 10 hosted by the Central Ohio Professional Education Council.
The stock market’s ups and downs that have Misenko and others worried about came in reaction to tariffs announced by President Donald Trump on April 2. The measures included a baseline tariff of 10% on U.S. trading partners while an escalating trade war with China resulted in a tariff on goods imported from there of 145%.
But, Trump backed off the tariffs in the days since he announced them, saying that other nations have asked to negotiate trade deals to avoid tariffs. Over the weekend, the White House announced exemptions for computers and smartphones coming from China.
The on-again, off-again tariffs have caused quick and sharp downturns and jumps in the stock market and resulted in more calls from concerned central Ohioans to their financial advisers, such as Chris Schumacher, a partner at TSG Advice Partners in Columbus.
“We give people the reality,” Schumacher said. “We don’t want to overreact and make emotional decisions when markets are moving this crazy. We need to let the volatility calm down.”
Schumacher said TSG Advice planned for some uncertainty in the first several months of 2025 as Trump took office. It wasn’t clear, Schumacher said, just how many tariffs the new administration would implement and financial advisors were unsure how much stepped up deportations of undocumented immigrants might hurt businesses and public sentiment.
Given the administration’s stop and go approach to tariffs and the increased likelihood of a recession, Schumacher said it’s difficult to know what the stock market might do in the short-term.
For now, Schumacher said he’s advising clients who are in or nearing retirement to make sure they have enough money to withstand a recession of two to three years. While Schumacher said he doesn’t know for sure whether a recession is on the horizon, if one is he doesn’t expect it to be a prolonged one nor as painful as the 2008 financial crisis.
“People that are retiring this year or in the next few years really need to be having conversations with their advisors about what they need to plan for a recession,” Schumacher said. “The longer these on-and-off tariffs go, the more likely a two to three-year recession is likely to happen.”
At the same time, Eric Bishoff, president and chief executive officer of The Bishoff Financial Group in Gahanna, said he’s telling clients to try not to panic.
While Wall Street hates uncertainty, Bishoff said his firm plans for it so that it can insulate clients as much as possible in the event of an economic downturn.
The worst thing a client could do right now, Bishoff said, is to overreact and upend their investment portfolio or retirement plans.
“When you overreact, you get damaged. For someone approaching retirement, the last thing you want to do is react to the volatility and sell out on the wrong day,” Bishoff said. “Patience is a virtue here.”
For central Ohioans like Misenko who are eying retirement, both Bishoff and Schumacher said they should start planning ahead of time.
Given the turbulence in the stock market among other factors, that’s exactly what Misenko has planned to do.
Although Misenko may not retire until she’s full retirement age in nearly 10 years, she said she wanted to make sure she was on the right path at the seminar April 10. Over the next several years, Misenko said she plans to pay off certain expenses —such as her car and home repairs— so she won’t have to worry about them in retirement.
Still, Misenko said there remains a lot of “underlying worry” about the state of the stock market and retirement planning as economic uncertainty continues. While she’s moving ahead with her plans for now, she said she will keep tabs on what’s happening and change things up if neccesary.
“I’m staying my course,” Misenko said. “But, there’s a lot of noise over here that if I didn’t do yoga five days a week, I think it would get to me.”
Dispatch investigative reporter Max Filby can be reached by email at [email protected]. Find him on X at the handle @MaxFilby or on Facebook at @ReporterMaxFilby.
