Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. 

The theme this week on the podcast is: Recession Coming in 2022?

Originally this week, I was going to talk about whether or not its better to save more in the years leading up to retirement, or focus on paying down your debts. That’s a topic I’ll come back to on a future week, because as I sat down to get ready to write my talking points for this week’s episodes, new data emerged showing inflation is getting worse, now at 7.5%. The stock market has taken a beating, with the S&P 500 down over 7% for the year as I record this episode. The Dow is faring better - down about 4% this year - but that’s because the Dow is made up of a higher concentration of high quality, solid stocks, and as recession fears grow, there’s a flight to quality and investors prefer companies with strong balance sheets, lots of cash, which is more characteristic of companies in the Dow.

The Fed is going to have to raise interest rates this year to bring inflation in check, and it seems increasingly likely that with the economy on shaky ground already, that higher interest rates might be the straw that broke the camel’s back and send our economy into a recession. 

So this week, I’m going to talk about how you can protect your portfolio and your retirement if we have a recession in 2022.

I’ll talk about how you can shore up your investment portfolio, how much cash you should have on hand, and why a plan B is critical if we do slip into a recession this year. 

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s important to invest and make financial decisions based on probabilities, not possibilities. And even if we sidestep a recession this year, we’re still going to have a recession at some point in the next few years, so these are all steps you can take now to protect yourself even if I’m wrong about the direction of the economy. 

I hope what I have to share with you this week will help you make smart and thoughtful decisions with your retirement. And while I am careful to not lead you astray, personal finance is not an exact science. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, so I encourage you to disregard anything I say that may not be helpful for you, and to consult your own financial, tax, and legal advisors regarding your own individual situation. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance