NEW YORK — Michael Montgomery used to check the balance on his retirement account once a week and smile. But lately, not wanting to get upset and question if he could retire in a few years, there was only one solution.

“I’m not looking,” says the 66-year-old professor from Huntington Woods, Michigan.

As the White House simultaneously injects turmoil into financial markets with its trade war and dismisses fears of a downturn, retired and near-retired Americans are anxiously watching, worried about outliving their savings or having to put off items on their bucket lists.

Keeping logged off his account has made Montgomery’s days less worrisome. He and his wife adjusted their portfolio after Election Day, including moving more money into bonds. But he’s not sure what more he can do if the world economy can be affected by Washington’s decisions.

“I hope ... I don’t lose all my retirement savings,” he says. “But where else could you put the money that these people could not disorder? They can’t get into your mattress but that’s about it.”

Many experts warned that U.S. stocks were overpriced and due for a correction even before President Donald Trump reclaimed the Oval Office. But a historic blanket of tariffs has injected new uncertainty into the market.

The S&P 500 is down 10% from an all-time high reached in February. Losses in the Nasdaq and among small-cap stocks are steeper. Even bonds and the U.S. dollar have been volatile. Many economists are warning of a possible recession.

Trump has urged people to “be cool” in assessing the impact of tariffs on their investments. Asked about his own savings last month, he chuckled and replied: “I haven’t checked my 401(k).”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meantime, brushed off the possibility that some might need to delay retiring, saying people “don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening.”

That seeming nonchalance isn’t sitting well with some older investors.

Peter Rost, 72, retired from his software development job last year and planned to start tapping his retirement savings to supplement Social Security. But he doesn’t want to bake in his losses. “I’m looking to take $2,000 and meanwhile the account drops by $30,000,” he says.

He’s been through serious downturns before, but those were different.

“I had the time to be patient and let it work its way back,” says Rost, who lives in New Hartford, Connecticut, “but now I’m retired and I need money from that account.”

At his age, he says, there’s one goal: “Make sure I don’t run out of money before I die.”

Americans’ retirement savings totaled about $44 trillion at the end of 2024, according to the Investment Company Institute. The composition of those savings has shifted increasingly toward stocks in the past couple decades as the 401(k) has become employers’ typical offering.

Tj Binkowski, who runs Narrow Road Financial Planning in Clarksville, Tennessee, says a downturn hits an older investor more than just emotionally. “When you’re retired, paper losses aren’t just on paper anymore. You’re locking them in every month that you take money out.”