Older Investors Have the Most to Lose. They Also Panic-Sell the Most.

Oil near a one-month high. Apple fell 2%. The Dow shed 307 points as the S&P slipped.

The quick scan: Monday was a quiet retreat rather than a rout. The US completed a ninth consecutive day of strikes on Iran overnight, and oil advanced again, holding near its highest close since mid-June. Sentiment steadied by midmorning London time after Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said intermediaries were still exchanging messages and negotiations could be pursued. Equities drifted lower anyway. Apple fell more than 2% and dragged the Dow well past the other two indices.

S&P 500: -0.19% to 7,443.28 – a shallow give-back after Friday's 1% drop; energy-driven inflation worries kept a lid on the broader market
Dow Jones: -0.59% to 51,839.26 – fell 307.16 points, the worst of the three; a decline of more than 2% in Apple did most of the damage to the price-weighted index
NASDAQ: -0.05% to 25,508.07 – effectively flat, and the mildest of the three after last week's heavy semiconductor selling

What's driving it: Oil, mostly. West Texas Intermediate held around $82.60 a barrel as traders watched for disruption to Saudi exports after Houthi threats to a Red Sea route. Higher energy costs feed straight into inflation expectations, which is why Treasuries sold off alongside equities rather than catching the usual safe-haven bid. The reflex hedge stopped working. Gold eased to around $4,000. Underneath it, the market is waiting rather than moving. Alphabet, Intel, IBM and Tesla all report later this week, into expectations left unusually unsettled by last week's semiconductor sell-off.

Bottom line: A 0.19% dip is noise. The signal is what caused it: an oil-led move that pushed bonds and equities down together. If your portfolio's ballast rests on bonds rising when shares fall, an energy-driven inflation scare is precisely where that assumption stops holding. Worth knowing which of your holdings genuinely diversify each other, and which only appear to.

Are You the "Experienced Investor" Who Actually Panics the Most?

The scoop: Picture the investor most likely to panic and sell everything during a market downturn. Who comes to mind: a jumpy twenty-something who just opened a brokerage app, or someone in their late fifties with three decades of retirement savings on the line? New data from a panel of retirement industry recordkeepers suggests you probably pictured the wrong person.

At the 2026 Stable Value Investment Association Spring Seminar, a panel of recordkeepers presented findings on how retirement plan participants have actually behaved through this year's bouts of market volatility. The headline finding was reassuring: most people are watching closely and doing nothing. The finding underneath it is the one worth sitting up for.

Almost nobody is trading. Almost everybody is watching.

Christelle Ngnoumen, a behavioural finance researcher at Voya Financial, told the seminar that only 1.4% of participants on Voya's platform made an investment allocation change in the first quarter of 2026, down slightly from the year before. Loan and hardship withdrawal activity held at roughly 1.2%. Meanwhile, contribution behaviour stayed strong: 73% of participants who changed their contribution rate in the quarter increased it.

What did change was attention. Ngnoumen reported sharp spikes in digital engagement around specific market events, such as tariff announcements and government shutdown concerns. Participants were logging in, checking balances and reviewing contributions at far higher rates, even when they ultimately made no changes. "They were very actively going into their retirement accounts, wanting to stay informed, and yet they were still staying the course," she said.

That is the behaviour most financial advice tells you to aim for: pay attention, do not act rashly. On the surface, the data says people are managing that balance well.

The people most likely to break that pattern are not who you would guess.

Here is the finding that should make anyone reading this newsletter sit up. Ngnoumen reported that age is a key differentiator in how participants behave during volatility, and older participants, especially those over 50, are more likely to trade during volatile periods than younger ones. Her explanation: they have larger balances and greater sensitivity to losses. "They have more assets, they have more to lose," she said. When loss aversion kicks in, older participants become more prone to what she called biased, reactive decisions, including panic selling or withdrawing.

This runs against the story most of us tell ourselves. The common assumption is that younger investors are the reckless ones, chasing trends on an app, while older investors are the steady hands who have seen a few cycles and know better than to react. Voya's data says the opposite is closer to the truth. More money at stake does not necessarily buy more discipline. Sometimes it buys more fear.

Plan design shapes what happens next, for better or worse.

Amy Montford of Principal Life Insurance Co. told the seminar that plan design plays a central role in shaping how participants behave, particularly those with limited investment experience. She noted that capital preservation options see the highest use among participants nearing or already in retirement, and that usage is driven largely by whether those options sit inside a plan's default structure. Montford also pointed to a broader shift: at "benefit events" such as retirement or a job change, more participants are rolling their savings out of the plan entirely and into retail products, often chasing the simplicity of consolidating scattered accounts into one place.

None of this is a verdict on what you personally should do with your own plan. It is a description of what plan design nudges people toward, and it is worth knowing which nudges are shaping your own account, even if you decide the nudge does not suit you.

Tom Manente of Empower Investments added a related wrinkle: the moments when the most money moves are not always market-driven at all. When a workplace switches recordkeepers or changes its investment lineup, asset movement can accelerate sharply in the weeks before the transition, and advisors are especially active in courting participants during that window. It is a reminder that the pressure to make a change does not only come from a falling market. Sometimes it comes from an administrative change you had no part in choosing, arriving with its own quiet sense of urgency.

When people do move money, they tend to move it at the wrong time.

Xin Zhou of T. Rowe Price, who moderated the panel, added a separate finding that deserves its own moment of attention: when participants do shift money between investment options, the flows tend to follow recent performance. "Participants do chase returns," Zhou said. Over the past five years, when participants moved money out of stable value funds, roughly 60% went into equities, 30% into target date funds, and 10% into other fixed income options, typically after those asset classes had already performed well.

That is the textbook version of buying high. It is not a moral failing. It is simply what happens when a strong run of returns feels like safety and a quiet period feels like missed opportunity. Knowing the pattern exists will not stop the feeling. It might help you notice it the next time it shows up in your own thinking.

The reassuring finding and the uncomfortable one live side by side.

Put together, the seminar's data tells two true things at once. Most retirement plan participants, across every age group, are staying the course through volatility, exactly as most financial advice recommends. And the participants most likely to break from that pattern, trading reactively during downturns, are disproportionately the ones over 50, the ones with the most saved, and the ones who might reasonably assume they are the last people who would panic.

If you have ever felt an urge to act during a rough week in the markets and told yourself that urge was earned experience rather than fear, this is the data that suggests otherwise.

Actionable Takeaways for L-Plate Retirees:

• Notice the urge before you act on it. The panel's data suggests that having more saved makes you more likely to react emotionally to a downturn, not less. If a bad week in the markets leaves you wanting to make a change, treat that feeling as information about your emotions, not necessarily as a signal to trade.

• Separate checking from changing. Most participants in the data increased their digital engagement during volatile periods without changing anything, and that is a healthy pattern. Log in, look, and give yourself a full day before making any change. The urgency usually fades faster than the market moves.

• Ask what your plan's defaults are nudging you toward. Capital preservation options and managed accounts see the highest use when they sit inside a plan's default structure, according to the panel. Find out what your own plan defaults to, so any decision you make is a choice rather than an accident of design.

• If you are rolling over savings at a job change or retirement, slow down on the "why." The panel noted more participants are moving savings into retail accounts at these moments, often chasing simplicity. Simplicity is a fair goal, but be honest about whether you are consolidating for clarity or moving money because the moment itself feels unsettling.

• Before moving money toward a recent winner, ask what changed besides the price. The data shows participants tend to move money into asset classes after they have already performed well. A strong recent run is not, on its own, a reason to buy in. Ask what specifically makes today a good entry point, beyond the fact that the chart looks good.

Your Turn: 
Have you ever assumed your own investing experience would make you calmer during a downturn than a younger, newer investor – and does this data change that assumption? 
Think about the last time markets got volatile. Did you check your accounts more than usual, change anything, or both? 
Do you know what your own retirement plan defaults to if you do nothing – and would you choose that option on purpose if someone explained it to you today?

👉 Hit reply and share your thoughts – your answers could inspire fellow readers in future issues.

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