Is Now a Good Time to Take Financial Risks? Top economist Julia Coronado's blunt answer: "Lol, short answer is no!" With economic uncertainty, volatile markets, and a cooling job market, experts advise caution on major financial decisions. Learn why this is a particularly challenging time for significant investments, job changes, and large purchases like homes
Is Now a Good Time for Big Financial Risks? Experts Say No. Current economic uncertainty, market volatility, and high inflation make major financial decisions risky. Learn why now might not be the ideal time for significant investments, job changes, or large purchases
Is Now a Good Time for Big Financial Moves? Experts Say No. Current economic uncertainty, including volatile markets, inflation concerns, and a cooling job market, makes major financial decisions—like buying a home, changing jobs, or investing—risky. Feeling uneasy about your finances? You're not alone. This article explores why now may be a particularly challenging time for significant financial transactions and what to consider before making big moves
Current economic uncertainty makes major financial decisions risky. Volatile stock markets, fluctuating tariff policies, and concerns about inflation and recession create a challenging climate. Low consumer confidence and a cooling job market further complicate financial planning, impacting decisions like buying a home, changing jobs, or retirement planning. Experts advise raising the bar for significant financial moves during this period of heightened economic instability
Feeling stuck? Current economic uncertainty makes major financial decisions challenging. A cooling job market, rising housing inventory (but higher mortgage rates), and volatile markets are causing many to reconsider job changes, home purchases, and retirement plans. Is now a good time for big financial risks? Experts say, likely not
Economic uncertainty doesn't stop big purchases or investments; it simply raises the bar for decision-making, says Claudia Sahm, Chief Economist at New Century Advisors. Instead of inaction, people demand a higher return or greater certainty before committing to significant financial risks in today's volatile market
Facing tough financial decisions in uncertain times? Delaying major purchases or investments might seem appealing, but waiting could worsen the situation. Should you act now or risk further economic downturn? Experts weigh in on navigating today's volatile market, considering factors like inflation, recession risks, and the cooling job market
Financial expert Chris Woods of Silvis Financial advises caution, stating that predicting the future economic climate is currently akin to reading tea leaves. With market volatility and economic uncertainty dominating headlines, now may not be the ideal time for significant financial risks
Predicting the future is tough, especially in uncertain economic times. Like Wayne Gretzky said, you need to anticipate where the market's going, not just react to where it's been. But with current economic volatility, high inflation fears, and a cooling job market, making major financial decisions – from buying a home to investing – requires extra caution. The bar is higher now
Facing a major financial decision? Uncertainty makes us wait for certainty, especially when penalties for changing our minds are high. Selling a new car six months later isn't ideal, highlighting the hesitation many feel before taking financial leaps
MIT finance professor Jonathan Parker explains that high economic uncertainty leads to delayed major purchases, like new car upgrades, as consumers prioritize saving for unforeseen circumstances
Navigating major financial decisions like buying a home, investing, or retirement requires a financial buffer. Unexpected events – job loss, medical emergencies, home repairs – demand extra funds. Avoid depleting savings or compromising daily needs; build a safety net for unforeseen circumstances. While diligent work is crucial, external factors like layoffs and inflation create uncertainty, making it challenging to accurately estimate this crucial financial buffer
With economic uncertainty high, now may not be the ideal time for major purchases. Experts advise raising the bar for significant financial decisions during times of market volatility and economic instability
Economic uncertainty: Should you delay big purchases? While current economic anxieties might seem daunting, consumer spending remains surprisingly robust. Fear of rising prices is driving forward purchases of big-ticket items like cars and appliances, boosting the economy despite negative sentiment. Tariffs and inflation concerns are fueling this preemptive spending spree, temporarily propping up consumer expenditure, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of US GDP. However, this situation is complex and doesn't negate the overall risks of making significant financial decisions in this volatile climate
Despite plummeting consumer sentiment, spending remains surprisingly resilient. Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management associate finance professor, Scott Baker, attributes this to a key factor impacting current economic conditions
At the same time, once people have made these anticipatory purchases or start to batten down the hatches, they could bring down the economy with them. If someone decides to put off renovating their kitchen, it means the contractor, the workers, and the store selling the materials miss out on money.
“Just the fact that all of this is happening generates a wave of uncertainty,” Parker says. “It’s a significant drag on the economy, and it’s not clear how big, but it certainly is a drag.”
To be sure, there are some areas where sitting on your hands is usually the way to go, such as investing. When the going gets tough in the stock market, one of the worst things people can do is panic and cash out at the bottom. If someone had done that, say, in the wake of Trump’s “Liberation Day,” they’d probably regret it now.
“Markets fluctuate all the time, they will go up and down,” says Siavash Radpour, the associate director of the Retirement Equity Lab at The New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. “Not doing anything is often a good policy for people who don’t know what’s going on.”
My colleagues at Business Insider recently did a series of stories attempting to answer whether it’s a good time to make big life decisions. They looked at starting a business (the answer was yes), buying a home (if you must, but maybe rent), changing jobs (no), investing in stocks (go for it, within reason), buying a new car (hop to it), and retiring (hold off). The advice in the stories is all helpful and enlightening, but it can also go only so far. Every decision in life involves risks, and the truest answer to “Should I do X, Y, Z?” is, “It depends!”
There’s no denying we’re in a time of heightened uncertainty. Anyone who says they know what will happen next is lying. And it really feels like things could break in any direction. While the safest advice is probably that you should snap up that new car before tariffs push up prices by thousands of dollars, Trump could declare the tariff thing over tomorrow, and all of a sudden you’ve overpaid for no reason.
“The market this year has been driven less by fundamentals and just more by the different news we’re getting from week to week on what’s going on,” Woods says.
Maybe you do hold off on buying a house and come to regret it five years from now when prices are even higher. Or, you don’t retire, and you miss out on time with your grandkids, or you’re so risk-averse about jumping ship from your company that you miss out on your dream job. Those decisions are harder to make now with more factors in play. It’s not just whether a recession is coming, but also what the AI revolution means for the structural future of the labor market. The question for retirees isn’t just whether they’ve saved enough; it’s also what might happen with public assistance programs they’d long planned around.
“There is the risk of what’s going to happen to Medicaid, what’s going to happen to Social Security,” Radpour says. “Health expenses are really scary in retirement.”
Starting a new business is always risky — statistically speaking, half of new businesses fail in five years. Loans for starting said business are more expensive and harder to come by. While it may be a decent time for a startup, no plan is foolproof. Many people who start a company during downturns and turmoil are doing so because they’ve lost their job or someone in their household has, not because they’re jazzed about the future. “The jump is made for them, in some sense,” Baker says. Still, if you see a market opportunity and want to make the jump, the idea that economy could get bad shouldn’t preclude taking action.
Thinking through all of the ambiguity and confusion isn’t fun. Financial risks are always scary, whether big or small. Now it feels like the anxiety is extra heightened, given the context. For many people, it’s going to feel like they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
“People are going to get burned on either side of this,” Sahm says. “And for what?”
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
Business Insider’s Discourse stories provide perspectives on the day’s most pressing issues, informed by analysis, reporting, and expertise.
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