While tariffs roil Wall Street, individual investors stay in stocks

As the stock market tumbled in early April, Mary Maguire got an unexpected message from her financial adviser.

Maguire, 69, spent decades diligently investing in her 401(k) before she retired. Now the adviser wanted to take advantage of the sinking market to buy more stock at a discounted price. Her answer: “You’ve kind of read my mind.”

Maguire is among millions of individual investors opting to ride out the stock market’s ups and downs.

The U.S. stock market has suffered repeated sell-offs since late February as the White House began implementing controversial new trade policies, erasing the rally that followed President Donald Trump’s election. The Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” briefly reached its worst level since 2020.

Markets rebounded last week, with the S&P 500 regaining about 5 percent in four consecutive days of gains. But the widely followed index remains more than 10 percent below its Feb. 19 peak.

The tariff-induced extremes that have gripped Wall Street have been mirrored by a surprising fortitude among everyday people invested in the stock market, financial advisers and analysts say.

Some data suggests that individual investors bought more stock as markets swooned in early April. Vanguard, one of the largest 401(k) operators, reports that as of mid-April, roughly 97 percent of its account-holders hadn’t initiated any trades in 2025, according to data provided by the company.

That’s roughly equivalent to what the company sees during normal market conditions, said Dave Stinnett, head of strategic retirement consulting at Vanguard.

“You have to honor the reactions that many investors have, which is a reaction of concern … but we’re really encouraged by what we see, as people are thinking long-term and sticking to their plan,” Stinnett said.

Maguire, who retired three years ago after a long career in public relations, said she is invested in a mix of stocks and bonds, and holds annual meetings with her financial adviser to gauge the right level of risk. She hasn’t considered cashing out: She hopes her 401(k) will continue growing in value for many years to come, and she isn’t worried about the short-term losses.

“I’m hanging tight,” Maguire said. “We’re living longer, and managing money is important, so you have to take the long view and save.”

Investment advisers tend to recommend that retirees or people who are close to retiring put more of their money in assets such as government bonds, which are generally seen as safer than stocks, although they offer less potential for big gains. Some retirement plans offer “target-date” funds that automatically shift investments to more conservative assets as account holders get older.

Those options are becoming increasingly common, as many employer-sponsored funds now offer them by default. But many retirees still invest aggressively, with the average Vanguard account holder between the ages of 55 and 64 putting almost two-thirds of their retirement assets in stocks as of 2023.

Olivia Mitchell, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies retirement savings, said she shifted assets into mutual funds that hold Treasury bonds, including inflation-protected securities.

“The only other time I did this was right before the tech bubble burst, in early 2000,” Mitchell said. “It took me some time to get back into the market after that! And here we are again.”

Michael Barr, a 52-year-old father of three, said his oldest child’s college savings account suffered a “significant, but not catastrophic” loss amid the recent market sell-off. Each of Barr’s children has a 529 account, which is a state-operated investment fund designated for education expenses.

The downturn hasn’t derailed his children’s college plans, Barr said, but the losses were painful enough that he halted contributions, reasoning that the money will be safer in a savings account.

Research analyst Amy Machado, 51, is in a similar position. Machado said she is a strong believer in the long-term growth of the stock market, something that led her and her ex-husband to contribute diligently to a 529 savings account that they started before their daughter was born.

But her daughter is now 16, and Machado wants to make sure the contributions she makes in the next two years are protected from the market’s ups and downs. She said she halted contributions after one of the president’s recent tariff announcements.

“I didn’t want to lose any money from what I’m contributing now,” Machado said. “If I put the money into savings instead, it’s guaranteed.”

Her decision to stop contributing is, in some ways, a reaction to a lack of certainty about what will happen next.

“Predictable bad things are easier to handle than not knowing what’s going to happen,” Machado said.

Others are treating the downturn as an opportunity to buy stocks at a lower price, hoping to make money on what they see as an inevitable rebound. Vanda Research, a financial research firm, reports that individual investors have accelerated their purchases of U.S. stocks in recent weeks.

Among those trying to buy as markets fall is Emily Feistritzer, 83, a former nun who left her convent to become an entrepreneur.

Feistritzer doesn’t depend on a 401(k)—she said she sold the company she founded, Teach-Now, for $52 million in 2021—but she’s fascinated by the complexities of the stock market, and likened her investment activities to a form of gambling. “I’m a high risk-taker in every aspect of my life,” she said.

She said that she believes the market will bounce back and that she loves investing in tech companies because she sees science and technology as core to civilization. Feistritzer said she’s heavily invested in Palantir and Nvidia, and has used the recent downturns as an opportunity to buy stocks at a more affordable price.

“I’ve made a lot of money that way,” Feistritzer said. “What goes up must come down, and in this case what goes down must come up.”