Personal Finance
‘Climate gentrification’ fuels higher prices for longtime Miami residents
A development towers over the Lyric Theater in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.
Greg Iacurci
MIAMI — Nicole Crooks stood in the plaza of the historic Lyric Theater, a royal blue hat shielding her from the midday sun that baked Miami.
In its heyday, the theater, in the city’s Overtown neighborhood, was an important cultural hub for the Black community. James Brown, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald performed there, in the heart of “Little Broadway,” for esteemed audience members such as Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis.
Now, on that day in mid-March, the towering shell of a future high-rise development and a pair of yellow construction cranes loomed over the cultural landmark. It’s a visual reminder of the changing face of the neighborhood — and rising costs for longtime residents.
Located inland, far from prized beachfront real estate, Overtown was once shunned by developers and wealthy homeowners, said Crooks, a community engagement manager at Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit focused on equity and justice.
Nicole Crooks stands in the plaza of the Lyric Theater in Overtown, Miami.
Greg Iacurci
But as Miami has become ground zero for climate change, Overtown has also become a hot spot for developers fleeing rising seas and coastal flood risk, say climate experts and community advocates.
That’s because Overtown — like districts such as Allapattah, Liberty City, Little Haiti and parts of Coconut Grove — sits along the Miami Rock Ridge. This elevated limestone spine is nine feet above sea level, on average — about three feet higher than Miami’s overall average.
A development boom in these districts is changing the face of these historically Black neighborhoods and driving up prices, longtime residents tell CNBC. The dynamic is known as “climate gentrification.”
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Gentrification due to climate change is also happening in other parts of the U.S. and is one way in which climate risks disproportionately fall on people of color.
“More than anything, it’s about economics,” Crooks said of the encroachment of luxury developments in Overtown, where she has lived since 2011. “We’re recognizing that what was once prime real estate [on the coast] is not really prime real estate anymore” due to rising seas.
If Miami is ground zero for climate change, then climate gentrification makes Overtown and other historically Black neighborhoods in the city “ground zero of ground zero,” Crooks said.
Why the wealthy ‘have an upper hand’
When a neighborhood gentrifies, residents’ average incomes and education levels, as well as rents, rise rapidly, said Carl Gershenson, director of the Princeton University Eviction Lab.
Because of how those elements correlate, the outcome is generally that the white population increases and people of color are priced out, he said.
Gentrification is “inevitable” in a place such as Miami because so many people are moving there, including many wealthy people, Gershenson said.
But climate change “molds the way gentrification is going to happen,” he added.
Part of the building site of the Magic City development in Little Haiti.
Greg Iacurci
Indeed, climate gentrification has exacerbated a “pronounced housing affordability crisis” in Miami, particularly for immigrants and low-income residents, according to a recent analysis by real estate experts at Moody’s.
Asking rents have increased by 32.2% in the past four years to $2,224 per unit, on average — higher than the U.S. average of 19.3% growth and $1,825 per unit, according to Moody’s.
The typical renter in Miami spends about 43% of their income on rent, making the metro area the least affordable in the U.S., according to May data from Zillow.
Housing demand has soared due to Miami’s transition into a finance and technology hub, which has attracted businesses and young workers, pushing up prices, Moody’s said.
But rising seas and more frequent and intense flooding have made neighborhoods such as Little Haiti, Overtown and Liberty City — historically occupied by lower-income households — more attractive to wealthy people, Moody’s said.
The rich “have an upper hand” since they have the financial means to relocate away from intensifying climate hazards, it said.
“These areas, previously overlooked, are now valued for their higher elevation away from flood-prone zones, which leads to development pressure,” according to Moody’s.
These shifts in migration patterns “accelerate the displacement of established residents and inflate property values and taxes, widening the socio-economic divide,” it wrote.
Indeed, real estate at higher elevations of Miami-Dade County has appreciated at a faster rate since 2000 than that in other areas of the county, according to a 2018 paper by Harvard University researchers.
Many longtime residents rent and therefore don’t seem to be reaping the benefits of higher home values: Just 26% of homes occupied in Little Haiti are occupied by their owners, for example, according to a 2015 analysis by Florida International University.
In Little Haiti, the Magic City Innovation District, a 17-acre mixed-use development, is in the early stages of construction.
Robert Zangrillo, founder, chairman and CEO of Dragon Global, one of the Magic City investors, said the development will “empower” and “uplift” — rather than gentrify — the neighborhood.
He said the elevation was a factor in the location of Magic City, as were train and highway access, proximity to schools and views.
“We’re 17 to 20 feet above sea level, which eliminates flooding,” he said. “We’re the highest point in Miami.”
Effects of high costs ‘simply heartbreaking’
Comprehensive real estate data broken down according to neighborhood boundaries is hard to come by. Data at the ZIP-code level offers a rough approximation, though it may encompass multiple neighborhoods, according to analysts.
For example, residents of northwest Miami ZIP code 33127 have seen their average annual property tax bills jump 60% between 2019 and 2023, to $3,636, according to ATTOM, a company that tracks real estate data. The ZIP code encompasses parts of Allapattah, Liberty City and Little Haiti and borders Overtown.
That figure exceeds the 37.4% average growth for all of Miami-Dade County and 14.1% average for the U.S., according to ATTOM.
Higher property taxes often go hand in hand with higher property values, as developers build nicer properties and homes sell for higher prices. Wealthier homeowners may also demand more city services, pushing up prices.
A high-rise development in Overtown, Miami.
Greg Iacurci
Average rents in that same ZIP code have also exceeded those of the broader region, according to CoreLogic data.
Rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments jumped 50% and 52%, respectively, since the first quarter of 2021, according to CoreLogic.
By comparison, the broader Miami metro area saw one-bedroom rents grow by roughly 37% to 39%, and about 45% to 46% for two-bedroom units. CoreLogic breaks out data for two Miami metro divisions: Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall and West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach.
“To see how the elders are being pushed out, single mothers having to resort to living in their cars with their children in order to live within their means … is simply heartbreaking for me,” Crooks said.
‘Canaries in the coal mine’
Climate gentrification isn’t just a Miami phenomenon: It’s happening in “high-risk, high-amenity areas” across the U.S., said Princeton’s Gershenson.
Honolulu is another prominent example of development capital creeping inland to previously less desirable areas, said Andrew Rumbach, senior fellow at the Urban Institute. It’s a trend likely to expand to other parts of the nation as the fallout from climate change worsens.
Miami and Honolulu are the “canaries in the coal mine,” he said.
But climate gentrification can take many forms. For example, it also occurs when climate disasters reduce the supply of housing, fueling higher prices.
Smoke from the Marshall Fire in Louisville, Colorado.
Chris Rogers | Photodisc | Getty Images
In the year following the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado — the costliest fire in the state’s history — a quarter of renters in the communities affected by the fire saw their rents swell by more than 10%, according to survey data collected by Rumbach and other researchers. That was more than double the region-wide average of 4%, he said.
The supply that’s repaired and rebuilt generally costs more, too — favoring wealthier homeowners, the researchers found.
Across the U.S., high-climate-risk areas where disasters serially occur experience 12% higher rents, on average, according to recent research by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Brookings Institution.
“It’s basic supply and demand: After disasters, housing costs tend to increase,” said Rumbach.
‘My whole neighborhood is changing’
Fredericka Brown, 92, has lived in Coconut Grove all her life.
Recent development has irreparably altered her neighborhood, both in character and beauty, she said.
“My whole neighborhood is changing,” said Brown, seated at a long table in the basement of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church. Founded in 1895, it’s the oldest African-American church in Coconut Grove Village West.
The West Grove district, as it’s often called, is where some Black settlers from the Bahamas put down roots in the 1870s.
“They’re not building single-family [houses] here anymore,” Brown said. The height of buildings is “going up,” she said.
Fredericka Brown (L) and Carolyn Donaldson (R) at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Coconut Grove.
Greg Iacurci
Carolyn Donaldson, sitting next to her, agreed. West Grove is located at the highest elevation in the broader Coconut Grove area, said Donaldson, a resident and vice chair of Grove Rights and Community Equity.
The area may well become “waterfront property” decades from now if rising seas swallow up surrounding lower-lying areas, Donaldson said. It’s part of a developer’s job to be “forward-thinking,” she said.
Development has contributed to financial woes for longtime residents, she added, pointing to rising property taxes as an example.
“All of a sudden, the house you paid for years ago and you were expecting to leave it to your family for generations, you now may or may not be able to afford it,” Donaldson said.
Why elevation matters for developers
Developers have been active in the City of Miami.
The number of newly constructed apartment units in multifamily buildings has grown by 155% over the past decade, versus 44% in the broader Miami metro area and 25% in the U.S., according to Moody’s data. Data for the City of Miami counts growth in overall apartment inventory in buildings with 40 or more units. The geographical area includes aforementioned gentrifying neighborhoods and others such as the downtown area.
While elevation isn’t generally “driving [developers’] investment thesis in Miami, it’s “definitely a consideration,” said David Arditi, a founding partner of Aria Development Group. Aria, a residential real estate developer, generally focuses on the downtown and Brickell neighborhoods of Miami and not the ones being discussed in this article.
Flood risk is generally why elevation matters: Lower-lying areas at higher flood risk can negatively affect a project’s finances via higher insurance rates, which are “already exorbitant,” Arditi said. Aria analyzes flood maps published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and aims to build in areas that have lower relative risk, for example, he said.
“If you’re in a more favorable flood zone versus not … there’s a real sort of economic impact to it,” he said. “The insurance market has, you know, quadrupled or quintupled in the past few years, as regards the premium,” he added.
A 2022 study by University of Miami researchers found that insurance rates — more so than the physical threat of rising seas — are the primary driver of homebuyers’ decision to move to higher ground.
“Presently, climate gentrification in Miami is more reflective of a rational economic investment motivation in response to expensive flood insurance rather than sea-level rise itself,” the authors, Han Li and Richard J. Grant, wrote.
Some development is likely needed to address Miami’s housing crunch, but there has to be a balance, Donaldson said.
“We’re trying to hold on to as much [of the neighborhood’s history] as we possibly can and … leave at least a legacy and history here in the community,” she added.
Tearing down old homes and putting up new ones can benefit communities by making them more resilient to climate disasters, said Todd Crowl, director of the Florida International University Institute of Environment.
However, doing so can also destroy the “cultural mosaic” of majority South American and Caribbean neighborhoods as wealthier people move in and contribute to the areas’ “homogenization,” said Crowl, a science advisor for the mayor of Miami-Dade County.
“The social injustice part of climate is a really big deal,” said Crowl. “And it’s not something easy to wrap our heads around.”
It’s basic supply and demand: After disasters, housing costs tend to increase.
Andrew Rumbach
senior fellow at the Urban Institute
Paulette Richards has lived in Liberty City since 1977. She said she has friends whose family members are sleeping on their couches or air mattresses after being unable to afford fast-rising housing costs.
“The rent is so high,” said Richards, a community activist who’s credited with coining the term “climate gentrification.” “They cannot afford it.”
Richards, who founded the nonprofit Women in Leadership Miami and the Liberty City Climate & Me youth education program, said she began to notice more interest from “predatory” real estate developers in higher-elevation communities starting around 2010.
She said she doesn’t have a problem with development in Liberty City, in and of itself. “I want [the neighborhood] to look good,” she said. “But I don’t want it to look good for someone else.”
It’s ‘about fiscal opportunity’
Carl Juste at his photo studio in Little Haiti.
Greg Iacurci
Carl Juste’s roots in Little Haiti run deep.
The photojournalist has lived in the neighborhood, north of downtown Miami, since the early 1970s.
A mural of Juste’s parents — Viter and Maria Juste, known as the father and mother of Little Haiti — welcomes passersby outside Juste’s studio off Northeast 2nd Avenue, a thoroughfare known as an area of “great social and cultural significance to the Haitian Diaspora.”
“Anybody who comes to Little Haiti, they stop in front of that mural and take pictures,” Juste said.
A mural of Viter and Maria Juste in Little Haiti.
Greg Iacurci
A few blocks north, construction has started on the Magic City Innovation District.
The development is zoned for eight 25-story apartment buildings, six 20-story office towers, and a 420-room hotel, in addition to retail and public space, according to a webpage by Dragon Global, one of the Magic City investors. Among the properties is Sixty Uptown Magic City, billed as a collection of luxury residential units.
“Now there’s this encroachment of developers,” Juste said.
“The only place you can go is up, because the water is coming,” he said, in reference to rising seas. Development is “about fiscal opportunity,” he said.
Plaza Equity Partners, a real estate developer and one of the Magic City partners, did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. Another partner, Lune Rouge Real Estate, declined to comment.
Magic City development site in Little Haiti.
Greg Iacurci
But company officials in public comments have said the development will benefit the area.
The Magic City project “will bring more jobs, create economic prosperity and preserve the thriving culture of Little Haiti,” Neil Fairman, founder and chairman of Plaza Equity Partners, said in 2021.
Magic City developers anticipate it will create more than 11,680 full-time jobs and infuse $188 million of extra annual spending into the local economy, for example, according to a 2018 economic impact assessment by an independent firm, Lambert Advisory. Likewise, Miami-Dade County estimated that a multimillion-dollar initiative launched in 2015 to “revitalize” part of Liberty City with new mixed-income developments would create 2,290 jobs.
Magic City investors also invested $31 million in the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, created and administered by the City of Miami to support community revitalization in Little Haiti.
Affordable housing and homeownership, local small business development, local workforce participation and hiring programs, community beautification projects, and the creation and improvement of public parks are among their priorities, developers said.
Zangrillo, the Dragon Global founder, sees such investment as going “above and beyond” to ensure Little Haiti is benefited by the development rather than gentrified. He also helped fund a $100,000 donation to build a technology innovation center at the Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church, he said.
Developers also didn’t force out residents, Zangrillo said, since they bought vacant land and abandoned warehouses to construct Magic City.
But development has already caused unsustainable inflation for many longtime Little Haiti residents, Juste said. Often, there are other, less quantifiable ills, too, such as the destruction of a neighborhood’s feel and identity, he said.
“That’s what makes [gentrification] so perilous,” he said. “Exactly the very thing that brings [people] here, you’re destroying.”
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday.
In what could be Jerome Powell’s last as chair before President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed nominee Kevin Warsh takes the helm, central bankers maintained the federal funds rate in a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
Inflation has surged since the war with Iran began, leaving policymakers with limited room to act, according to Sean Snaith, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “We’re in a kind of suspended animation — between Iran and the Fed transition,” Snaith said.
Before the oil shock, inflation was holding above the Fed’s 2% target but not worsening. Now the jump in energy costs could have longer-term inflationary effects, economists say.
For Americans struggling in the face of higher gas prices and overall affordability challenges, the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged does little to ease budgetary pressures. “The cavalry isn’t coming anytime soon,” Snaith said.
How the Fed decision impacts you
The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on many consumer borrowing and savings rates.
Short-term rates are more closely pegged to the prime rate, which is typically 3 percentage points above the federal funds rate. Longer-term rates, such as home loans, are more influenced by inflation and other economic factors.
Credit cards
Most credit cards have a short-term rate, so they track the Fed’s benchmark.
After the Fed cut rates three times in the second half of 2025, the average annual percentage rate has stayed just under 20%, according to Bankrate.
“Without Fed rate cuts, there’s not much reason to expect meaningful declines anytime soon, so carrying a balance will remain very expensive,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
Mortgage rates
Fixed mortgage rates, on the other hand, don’t directly track the Fed but typically follow the lead of long-term Treasury rates.
Concerns about how the Iran war will impact the U.S. economy have already pushed the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage up to 6.38% as of Tuesday, from 5.99% at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily.
That leaves homeowners with existing low mortgage rates “feeling stuck,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. “Mortgages, more than any other credit type, work on a churn,” she said, referring to how a dip in rates can boost borrowing activity.
Student loans
Federal student loan rates are also fixed and based in part on the 10-year Treasury note, so most borrowers are somewhat shielded from Fed moves and recent economic uncertainty.
Current interest rates on undergraduate federal student loans made through June 30 are 6.39%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Interest rates for the upcoming school year will be based in part on the May auction of the 10-year note.
Car loans
Auto loan rates are tied to several factors, including the Fed’s benchmark. Because financing costs remain elevated, new car buyers are taking on longer loans to keep their monthly payments manageable, according to the latest data from Edmunds.
Even so, with the rate on a five-year new car loan near 7%, the average monthly payment on a new car rose to $773 in the first quarter of 2026, an all-time high.
“Car buyers are in a tough spot right now because they’re getting squeezed from both ends: high sticker prices and high interest rates, with neither showing any signs of letting up,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
“Until the rate picture shifts, buyers will keep stretching loan terms to make payments work, which only adds to the total cost of ownership down the road,” Yoon said.
Savings rates
While the Fed has no direct influence on deposit rates, the yields tend to be correlated with changes in the target federal funds rate. So, although rates on certificates of deposit and high-yield savings accounts have fallen from recent highs, they are holding above the annual rate of inflation.
For now, top-yielding online savings accounts and one-year CD rates pay around 4%, according to Bankrate.
“Yields on high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit are down from their peaks of a few years ago, but they’re still strong compared to what we’ve seen for most of the past decade,” Schulz said.
Milan Markovic | E+ | Getty Images
The average tax refund is 11.2% higher this season, compared with about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data.
As of April 10, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,397, up from $3,055 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday.
The IRS data reflects about 114 million individual returns received, out of about 164 million expected through Tax Day. Next week’s filing update is expected to include data through the April 15 deadline.
President Donald Trump‘s 2025 legislation, rebranded to the “working families tax cuts,” was a key talking point for Republicans on Tax Day.
With the November midterm elections approaching and Republicans defending slim majorities in Congress, many GOP lawmakers have highlighted Trump’s tax breaks and higher average refunds.
Meanwhile, affordability has been top of mind for many Americans amid rising costs of gas, electricity, food and other living expenses.
For filers who expected a refund this season, nearly one-quarter, or 23%, planned to use the funds to pay down credit card debt, and the same share said they would save the payment, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April. It polled 3,494 U.S. adults at the end of March.
Who benefited from Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
“It’s been a great tax season for the American people,” many of whom have benefited from Trump’s tax breaks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a White House press briefing on Wednesday.
More than 53 million filers claimed at least one of Trump’s “signature new tax cuts” — the deductions for tip income, overtime earnings, seniors and auto loan interest — the Department of the Treasury also announced on Wednesday.
Those filers, who claimed the deductions on Schedule 1-A, have seen an average tax cut of over $800, according to the Treasury. Tax cuts can trigger a higher refund or reduce taxes owed, depending on the filer’s situation.
Some filers who itemize tax breaks have also seen benefits from the bigger federal deduction limit for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Trump’s legislation raised that cap to $40,000, up from $10,000, for 2025.
The latest SALT deduction limit change is expected to primarily benefit higher earners, according to a May 2025 analysis of various proposals from the Tax Foundation.
The Treasury has not released data on how many filers have claimed the SALT deduction during the 2026 filing season.
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on April 16, 2026.
NYSE
U.S. stocks climbed to record highs on Thursday against a backdrop of war, an oil supply shock and economic forecasts warning of stunted growth amid a protracted conflict.
Many investors may be thinking: Why?
Largely, it’s because the stock market is a barometer of what investors think will happen in the future, rather than an assessment of the present day, according to economists and market analysts.
Investors are essentially shrugging off the Middle East conflict as a blip that will be resolved relatively quickly, they said.
“The stock market isn’t trying to price what’s happening today,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “The stock market is always trying to price what the world is going to look like six to 12 months from now.”
Why stocks have been ‘resilient’
The S&P 500, a U.S. stock index, fell about 8% in the initial weeks of the Iran war, from the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 to a recent low on March 30.
But stocks have rebounded since then, erasing all losses since the beginning of the war. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on Thursday — about 11% higher than its nadir at the end of March. That followed a record close on Wednesday.
“The market has remained very resilient in the face of the war and has rallied strongly on the prospect that it will be resolved,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.
A ship waits to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following the two-week temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran, which is conditional on the opening of the strait, in Oman on April 8, 2026.
Shady Alassar | Anadolu | Getty Images
And while investors cheered the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict, the temporary ceasefire has appeared tenuous, with the U.S. and Iran each accusing the other of breaking the agreement.
Nations haven’t been able to reach a peace deal ahead of the ceasefire’s end. Vice President JD Vance said U.S. officials left peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend after the Iranian delegation refused to agree to American demands not to develop a nuclear weapon.
The markets ‘have memory’
Ultimately, the stock market is signaling a collective belief that tensions will ratchet down, the war will end in the near term and oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz will normalize, economists said.
That’s largely because investors have been conditioned to believe that President Donald Trump will back off if the economic pain becomes too intense, economists said — the so-called “TACO” trade, shorthand for “Trump always chickens out.”
“Investors strongly believe — and have been conditioned to believe — he’s going to stand down, find a way to pivot, declare victory and move on,” Zandi said.
Trump has pushed back on the notion of backing down, framing his brinkmanship as a savvy negotiating tactic.
Economists pointed to a recent example of this dynamic: in April 2025 during so-called liberation day, when the Trump administration levied a host of tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Within days — after the stock market had cratered more than 12% — Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs. Stocks then saw one of their biggest daily rallies in history following Trump’s reversal.
Investors remember that Trump often de-escalates geopolitical shocks — which is why they’ve seized on positive headlines that hint at progress in peace talks, for example, Seydl said.
“The markets have memory,” Seydl said.
AI stocks and the ‘tech boom’
Traders celebrating at the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2026, as the S&P 500 closed above the 7,000 level for the first time.
NYSE
There are other factors underpinning market resilience during wartime, economists said.
One is the investors’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and technology stocks, which account for almost half of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, Zandi said.
“Those stocks run on their own dynamic independent of anything, including the war in Iran,” Zandi said. “I think we would have been down a lot more and it would have been harder for us to recover had it not been for the very, very optimistic perspectives on AI.”
We’re in the middle of a “tech boom” — and investors are likely to remain optimistic until they think the tech cycle has run its course, Seydl said.
More broadly, stock investors are essentially making a bet on the future earnings growth of a company — and the earnings backdrop has been “pretty solid,” Seydl said.
Consumer spending appears to be stable, for example, economists said. And companies are getting a boost to their after-tax earnings from the GOP’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” which, among other things, made it easier to write off investments upfront and therefore reduce their tax liability, Zandi said.
Going forward
Experts said there will be an economic hit from the Iran war, though.
“Despite the recent news of a temporary ceasefire, some damage is already done, and the downside risks remain elevated,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, wrote Tuesday.
A protracted conflict risks deep and global economic pain, he wrote.
Even if the conflict is short-lived — as the broad market expects — stocks are unlikely to march much higher until it’s clear the U.S. is on the other side of the war and its economic fallout, Zandi said.
If investors are incorrect, and President Trump doesn’t back down or quickly extricate the U.S. from the war, the stock market may see a “full-blown correction” or worse, Zandi said. A stock market correction is a decline of at least 10% from recent highs.
“Everyone thinks they know what the script is,” Zandi said. “Now they just need to follow the script. If they don’t, the market will have some real problems.”
The uncertainty provides yet another example of why the average investor with a long time horizon should stick to their investment plan and ignore the noise, experts said.
“Trying to time the market is very difficult if not impossible for the average investor,” Seydl said. “It’s better to take a long-term perspective and ride out bouts of volatility.”
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