Most Americans’ stock market investments are in retirement accounts.1 So when the stock market plunged into bear territory in the wake of tariff announcements on April 2, billions of dollars of life savings in retirement accounts were affected in less than a week. According to a new study, 64% of Americans worry more about running out of money in retirement than they do about death.2 While the post-”Liberation Day” losses hurt, investors can rethink their retirement accounts for a more income-driven approach through high yielding dividends.
From April 3 through April 8, the average 401(k) lost between $43,000 and $74,000 for people in or nearing retirement.3 But people of all ages experienced losses in the five figures per account on average. For young investors with modest retirement accounts, the loss was painful, but not disastrous as they have decades to recover their losses. But for people nearing or currently in retirement, the loss was painful as most of them have less time to recover.
And it wasn’t just traditional retirement accounts that were hit hard. 56% of retirees get some of their income from pensions.4 In the four trading days after the tariff announcements, the 25 largest state and local pension funds in the U.S. lost over $169 billion. Those same funds have lost $249 billion so far this year. These 25 pension funds represent two-thirds of the public pension plan assets in the country.5
Beyond the initial tariff shock and mass selloffs in the market, the actual tariffs themselves may reduce the profits of impacted companies whether they absorb the added cost themselves or pass the price onto consumers. A hit to profits usually means a drop in stock prices, but stock prices are not the only returns available to investors.
Many companies offer dividends6 as a portion of their profits to shareholders. They usually, but not always, are well-established companies with stable cash flow. Dividend-paying companies are also more likely to be ones who have dealt with tariffs, supply chain issues, and other flavors of uncertainty before and have weathered them over time. These types of companies also tend to keep paying dividends even in market downturns, though the amounts may change.
TrueShares Opal Dividend Income ETF (DIVZ) and Opal International Dividend Income ETF (IDVZ) use a fundamentals approach to include companies that fit the aforementioned characteristics. Both ETFs are concentrated and seek lower volatility with higher dividend yield while paying regular dividend distributions to investors.
But TrueShares also offers another dividend income ETF that simplifies things even further. TrueShares Active Yield ETF (ERNZ) seeks to generate consistent income for investors using a proprietary algorithm that identifies high dividend yield among 50 to 150 income-generating securities. The holdings are determined by experienced investors who actively monitor market conditions. This means that even if Company A were to pause or reduce dividends in a market downturn, they may be automatically replaced in the portfolio by Company B which chose to continue providing dividends. ERNZ can be a set-it-and-forget-it strategy for regular income.
For retirees who may have just lost a chunk of their life savings, all three ETF strategies may be suitable options for gaining consistent income when you might not otherwise have time to wait around for the market to correct itself.
To learn more about DIVZ, visit: https://www.true-shares.com/divz/
To learn more about IDVZ, visit: https://www.true-shares.com/idvz/
To learn more about ERNZ, visit: https://www.true-shares.com/ernz/
- https://www.boston.com/news/business/2025/04/08/are-trumps-tariffs-putting-retirement-accounts-at-risk-experts-weigh-in/
- https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/americans-worry-more-about-going-broke-in-retirement-than-dying
- https://www.ktvu.com/news/401k-losses-stock-market-uncertainty
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-retirement-investments.htm
- https://equable.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Issue-Brief_State-and-Local-Pension-Funds-Have-Lost-At-Least-249-Billion-in-Assets-in-2025.pdf
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividend.asp
