Anxious about the state of... everything? Here's how to manage your money through the chaos.

Thu, Mar 6, 2025, 11:07 AM 7 min read

February wasn’t the kindest month for retirement savers.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell nearly 4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped roughly 1.5%.

Amid all that market turmoil, 401(k) participants hustled to safety, fleeing from equity funds to fixed-income investments, according to a new report that tracks the inflow and outflow from 401(k) plan account holdings. For about half of the month’s trading days, trading activity was above normal, according to the Alight Solutions 401(k) Index.

People pulled 401(k) money from company stock, large US equity funds, and target-date funds and shifted to stable value, bond, and money market funds.

“These are historically less risky than equity funds,” Rob Austin, head of thought leadership at Alight Solutions, told Yahoo Finance. “So the move to them could signal that people are preferring to have lower volatility in their portfolios.”

Lower volatility? As if.

Millions of workers are edgy about losing their jobs or are already dealing with a layoff. There are percolating worries over economic growth hitting the brakes, tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China ratcheting up inflation, a warning about "World War III" to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an angry Oval Office meeting.

The former head of the Social Security Administration is cautioning that the agency could be at risk of missing payments to seniors for the first time in its history thanks to the massive staffing cuts planned by the Trump administration. And deeper concerns about the future of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid benefits are ominously hovering.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence sank in February, the biggest monthly decline in more than four years.

Life is coming at us fast, and, if you’re like me, you’re anxious.

I asked several financial advisers what they’re telling their clients about managing their money in these uncertain times.

Read more: What is a financial adviser, and what do they do?

“Market swings are normal, but they don’t always spell trouble,” Lisa A.K. Kirchenbauer, senior adviser and founder of Omega Wealth Management in Arlington, Va., told Yahoo Finance.

“While much is still yet to be played out, the uncertainty and discomfort is growing,” she said. “Depending on where you are in life: working, pre-retirement, retiring, or retired for a while, these potential shifts are raising a number of short- and long-term questions.”

The most important question we can ask, Kirchenbauer said, is: "What are you most concerned about?"