Our stock market is starting to crack. Investor confidence is rapidly dissipating. And changes in the way Wall Street works mean that the impact on your retirement portfolio could be far more severe than you may realize.jqkbet

With the S&P 500 Index down nearly 8 percent from its February peak, the U.S. equity markets are approaching bear-market territory, signaling a growing consensus in corporate America that a recession may be around the corner. After declining for three months in a row, consumer confidence is at its lowest level since July 2022, according to the University of Michigan index. Retailers are suffering: Ralph Lauren stock has fallen 19 percent in the last month alone. There are plenty of other stocks that are tanking, too.

Some of this was entirely predictable. The markets have been on an upward tear for the past eight years, hitting record highs both in the first Trump administration and under President Joe Biden. We were probably long overdue for the inevitable correction. The question, though, is how ugly this one will get. If history is any guide, it could get pretty bad: Financial reckonings tend to happen once every 20 years or so, and we are nearly 17 years out from the devastating financial crisis of 2008.

This time feels different because the damage is at least partially inflicted by the nine-week-old Trump administration, which recently signaled its determination to impose disastrous tariffs, even if doing so unleashes a recession. Corporate executives and Wall Street are rattled.

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President Trump is lighting the match. But truth be told,fef777 there is a lot of bone-dry kindling lying around, thanks in large part to how the buying and selling of stocks has changed in the past 15 years, since Wall Street regulations were reformed — changes that have made many ordinary retirement portfolios a whole lot more exposed to some of the highest-priced stocks we’ve seen in our lifetimes, which many believe are poised to return to Earth.

Federal regulations implemented in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis curbed the role that big banks play in trading stocks and bonds. But in doing so, they also paved the way for a whole slew of new, less regulated but increasingly powerful pools of capital controlled by the likes of Citadel, Point72 and Millennium Management to step into the vacuum.

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His debunked claims about Haitian migrants stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio, helped stir a firestorm over immigration in that community, which has dealt with bomb threats and evacuations after Mr. Trump made his comments.

Speaking in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Vice President Kamala Harris has a slight edge in recent polls, Mr. Trump bristled at the notion that his struggles with women voters could cost him the election and suggested that his tough talk about immigration and economic proposals would resonate with them.

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