Volatility, recession top investor fears, study finds

Virtually all advisers have risk-management strategies in place, says Nationwide.

A majority of investors (61%) are worried about greater market volatility and a recession (69%) over the next 12 months, according to an annual study from the Nationwide Retirement Institute.

The study found that 93% of advisers and financial professionals currently have a strategy in place to help protect their clients’ assets against market risk. Among those with a strategy, the solutions they would choose to protect clients include diversification (55%), fixed annuities (48%) and fixed-indexed annuities (46%).

When asked to identify how the past financial crisis that had the most profound impact on them changed their approach to investing, investors indicated they chose to manage investments more conservatively (20%), adopt a new strategy to protect assets against market risk (17%) and use the market decline as a buying opportunity (17%).